Turkish judge rules for fresh lawsuit against Islamic preacher advocating ‘beating of women’

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A Turkish judge has ruled for a new criminal complaint to be filed against Islamic preacher Nurettin Yıldız, the head of Social Fabric Foundation, over his 2018 remarks that “A woman who gets beaten should be thankful.”

The judge said that Yıldız’s remarks “instigated (people) to crime,” according to reporting by Oda TV on March 29.

Following Yıldız’s misogynist remarks in 2018, a woman named R.K. had reacted against the preacher on social media. Afterwards, Yıldız filed a lawsuit against the woman on “insult” charge, with an Istanbul prosecutor asking for up to 2 years and four months in prison for the charge in question.

The judge overlooking the “insult” case ruled that there was no need for any penalty against R.K. on the grounds that the preacher’s remarks were “justifying violence against women.” The judge also ruled for a new criminal complaint to be filed against Yıldız at the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on the grounds that Yıldız’s remarks were “praising crime and criminal.”

“Yıldız’s understanding of praising violence against women or approving it cannot be accepted in our law in which the equality of women and men is valid. As women-men equality is side by side in life’s every sphere, there is no place for gender discrimination in current life. Among the moral and legal values of our present day, there can be no place for beating of women implemented in the first ages,” the judge said in their reasoned decision.

Yıldız had also led to a social reaction in 2015 when he had suggested that children as young as six-years-old could marry other children or adults.

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