As debates on the proposed constitutional amendments are continuing, the lower commission of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) is finalizing its study on the draft TCK law. Women's groups argue that the draft TCK law legitimizes violations of women's human rights, and limits the citizens' rights and freedoms.

Women's Human Rights New Solutions Foundation made a statement on behalf of the TCK Women's Platform. The foundation said that the articles in the draft law on "honor crimes," "virginity tests," "obscenity," and "shameless behavior" still included regulations that would lead to violations of women's human rights.

The women said that the draft law, in its current form, was against the principle of equality in the Constitution and the European Union (EU) reforms. They said urgent regulations were needed on four articles.

Women's demands

TCK Women's Platform demanded the following regulations on articles expected to be discussed at the TCK lower commission this week:

* Honor Crimes:

The commission does not accept the sanctions to prevent honor crimes. To prevent legitimization of honor crimes through law, the expression of "with the motivation of honor," should be included among conditions that make penalties heavier, listed under article, "murdering qualified persons."

The expression, "perpetrators of honor crimes cannot benefit from wrongful act" should be included in the grounds of article "wrongful provocation."

* Virginity tests:

The draft law does not include regulations that would prevent virginity tests. Whether or not a woman, who has been raped, is a virgin, does not change the characteristic of the crime. So the expression of "virginity tests," which is only used to put pressure on women and young girls, should be excluded from the draft law.

The draft law should also clearly state that "genital and gynecological exams," could only be conducted with only the decision of the judge or the prosecutor in urgent cases; and that all others who have virginity tests conducted on women and girls would be punished.

* Shameless behavior

The draft law states that everyone, who "for whatever reason, publicly behaves in a shameless way or acts in a way that hurts feelings of good manners," will be sentenced to six months to a year in prison.

The article does not state with which criteria the "shameless behavior" is identified or what acts it consists of. This article makes it possible to sentence a woman who wears short sleeves or a couple who walk hank in hand. This article should be regulated so that only exhibitionists face a sentence.

* Obscenity:

The article in the draft law about obscenity envisages a prison sentence from three to ten years for all publications or broadcasts including scientific research, piece of art or media news, if they include "text, sound or image of sexual behavior which includes violence, or with animals, dead bodies, or unnatural ways."

Since the article does not make a distinction between the characteristic of the publication or broadcast, a news article on rape, a scientific article about incest or poetry with the theme of homosexuality, could be found obscene under this article.

This article in its current form also contradicts the 30.07.2003 dated law no: 4963, which was named "seventh harmonization package," under EU reforms and which went into effect after being published in the Official Gazette no: 25192.

Expressions that limit freedom of expression should be excluded from the Obscenity article. The article should further be regulated to allow the punishment of just child pornography. (BB/EU/EA/YE)