European human rights court rules against Turkey in abuse case

It was the first time the court ruled against a state for failing to protect a citizen against domestic violence, Turkish broadcasters reported. Â

 

Turkey was also found to have violated the convention on human rights which prohibits torture, inhumane treatment and discrimination in Opuz vs. Turkey. It was ordered to pay 36,500 euros ($50,670) to the applicant, whose ex-husband killed her mother, according to a ruling on the ECHR's website.

 

As many as half of Turkish women face violence in the home, Amnesty International has said, and dozens of women are killed in suspected "honor killings" each year.

 

"The general and discriminatory judicial passivity in Turkey created a climate that was conducive to domestic violence," the court said in the statement.

 

The applicant in the ECHR case and her mother had repeatedly informed authorities that their lives were in danger and had appealed for protection at least four times between 1998 and 2002, including a month before the mother was shot dead.

 

The applicant and her mother suffered life-threatening injuries from several incidents of abuse, including when he stabbed his wife in a knife attack and ran them both down in his car. He served three months in prison and paid a fine of a few hundred euros for the latter attack.

 

He was found guilty and sentenced to life by a Turkish court after shooting his mother-in-law as she tried to flee to another city with her daughter, the ECHR statement said.

 

But he was released from prison pending an appeal on the basis he had committed murder to protect his family's "honor" and reportedly resumed harassing his ex-wife, it said.