Clementine van Eck Clementine van Eck Clementine van Eck Purified by Blood Honour Killings amongst Turks in the Netherlands Purified by Blood Honour killings are murders that are carried out to purify tarnished honour, the honour in question being namus. Both men and women possess namus. For women and girls, namus means chastity, while for men it means having chaste female family members. Honour killing is a widely known phenomenon in Turkey, where the Hürriyet newspaper reports an average of six such killings a month. As a result of migra- tion since the 1960s and 1970s, we also encounter it in Western Europe (the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Sweden and Denmark). This study examines in detail 20 cases of honour killing by Turks in the Netherlands. Particular atten- tion is given to the social factors that play a role in the decision to commit an honour killing. Clementine van Eck studied Cultural anthropology and Turkish language and literature. She now teaches courses on honour killing and intercultural communication to the police. Purified by Blood ISBN 90 5356 491 8 Honour Killings amongst Turks in the Netherlands A U P A U P Purified by Blood Purified by Blood Honour Killings amongst Turks in the Netherlands Clementine van Eck Amsterdam University Press For G.J. van Eck (1919-1975) Cover design: Sabine Mannel/nap, Amsterdam Lay-out: japes, Amsterdam isbn 90 5356 491 8 nur 747/761 © Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2003 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Table of contents Preface 7 Introduction 9 1. Honour and honour killing 15 1.1. Two types of honour: namus and șeref 15 1.2. Honour killing and blood revenge 32 1.3. Turkish jurisprudence and honour killing 34 1.4. Islam and honour killing 37 1.5. Honour killing in the Netherlands 39 2. The victim 43 2.1. Who is the victim? 43 2.2. Rape claims 49 2.3. Honour killing of newborn babies 51 2.4. Honour killing of a member of the honour violator’s family 52 2.5. Multiple honour killings 55 2.6. Honour killing of an implicated third party 56 2.7. The wrong person is killed 59 2.8. Failed honour killing 60 2.9. The funeral 64 2.10. Protests against honour killing 67 3. The honour killer 73 3.1. Honour killing as a ritual 73 3.2. Planning: accomplices 78 3.3. The honour killer has motives of his own 88 3.4. Female honour killers 89 3.5. Hired assassins 91 3.6. Disguised honour killing 93 3.7. Dutch jurisprudence and honour killing 95 4. Marriage and elopement 99 4.1. The rejected marriage proposal 100 4.2. Elopement 104 5 4.3. Honour killing following an elopement 118 4.4. The girl is killed 122 5. More case studies 129 5.1. Authority over the children 129 5.2. Incitement to murder 132 5.3. A crime of passion 137 5.4. Sexual insults 142 5.5. Pathological honour killing 146 5.6. Murder/manslaughter for reasons of male pride 151 6. Alternatives to honour killing 157 6.1. No more responsibility for the woman 158 6.2. No action 164 6.3. Minimum response 167 6.4. Withdrawal 172 6.5. Calling in the authorities 173 6.6. Injuring the namus of the honour violator 182 7. Why an honour killing? 183 7.1. Pressure from the Turkish community 185 7.2. Objectives other than honour purification 193 7.3. Provocation 197 7.4. Circumstances of the honour killer or accomplice 199 7.5. Honour killing following an elopement 202 7.6. Honour killing within the family 204 7.7. Other contributing factors 209 7.8. The situation of immigrants 211 Conclusion 221 Appendix I. More case studies from the court records 223 Appendix II. Case studies from Bitlis province 237 Appendix III. The Turkish Criminal Code (TCK) and honour killing 241 Notes 245 Literature 289 Index 301 6 Preface When I graduated from the Catholic University Nijmegen as a cul- tural anthropologist and embarked on Turkish Studies at Leiden University, my lecturers Dick Koopman and Ane Nauta drew my at- tention to the topic, ‘honour killings among Turks in the Nether- lands’. They assumed – quite correctly – that the subject would interest me as a cultural anthropologist. It is an area in which they had been working since the 1970s, following regular approaches from the courts and the police with requests for information. I would like to thank them for bringing the subject to my notice. I especially wish to thank Ane Nauta, with whom I had various discussions – during my Turkish studies – about honour killing cases on which he had been asked to give his opinion as an expert witness. Unfortunately, it was not possible within the Turkish Department to devote a thesis to honour killings, but in 1995 I had an opportunity to research this topic at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Re- search, Amsterdam University. This is one of the few research schools in the Netherlands that allows you to write your doctoral the- sis on a subject of your own choice. Anton Blok of Amsterdam Uni- versity and Henk Driessen of the Catholic University Nijmegen were excellent supervisors. In addition, members of the doctoral students’ anthropology group (the ‘anthropology club’) at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research provided me with useful feed- back. I also wish to thank Johan Goudsblom for helping to assess my interim papers. Matthijs van den Bos, Frank Bovenkerk, Lenie Brouwer, Martin van Bruinessen, Léon Buskens, Remco Ensel, Dick Koopman, Cees Maris, Ruud Peters, Wibo van Rossum, Hermine Wiersinga and Erik-Jan Zürcher all provided me with useful com- mentary. Aspha Bijnaar, Mieke Komen and Geertje van Os helped not just with matters of substance, but gave me moral support as well. I would like to thank the librarians at the University Library in Leiden, who were always happy to conduct literature searches for me. I wish to extend my gratitude to a number of people in Turkey: the late Osman Badrasl1, for providing me with the Bitlis case studies (see appendix II); his daughter Övgü, who trained as a librarian in 7 Ankara, for tracking down Turkish literature on honour and honour killings; and both Judge Muzaffer Cebesoy and Public Prosecutor Zekeriya Sevimli in Ankara, for explaining Turkish law relating to honour killings. Furthermore, I would like to thank Neslihan Sümer, a Turkish anthropologist at the University of Ankara, who wrote her doctoral thesis on female murderers in Turkey and with whom I was able to discuss various aspects of honour killings. My thanks also go to Pitstra of the Central Judicial Archives in Almelo for a list of all instances of murder and manslaughter com- mitted in the Netherlands by people born in Turkey. From this list, I was able to trace various cases of honour killings. Information relat- ing to the police and the courts, I obtained from Frank Kornaat, Arno Bijl, and others who prefer not to be named. I am very grateful to New Zealander, Annette Visser, for her willingness to make such an excellent English translation of my Dutch text. It is no easy task conducting research if you have two young chil- dren. I am therefore very grateful to my parents-in-law, who often came over from Ankara to help us. In addition, I would like to thank Judith for all her hard work. I owe my mother gratitude for her sup- port. I am indebted to my husband, Bahad1r, for his help and his pa- tience. I dedicate this thesis to my father who, in his capacity as a social worker at a caravan camp in Emmen, can rightfully be called an anthropologist avant la lettre. 8 Introduction This study looks at honour killings committed by Turks in the Neth- erlands.1 Honour killings are murders that are carried out to purify tarnished honour, the honour in question being namus.2 Both men and women possess namus. For women and girls, namus means chastity, while for men it means having chaste female family mem- bers. A man is therefore dependent for his namus on the conduct of the womenfolk in his family. This means in effect that women and girls must not have illicit contact with a member of the opposite sex and must avoid becoming the subject of gossip, since gossip alone can impugn namus. Girls must adhere to the namus code of behav- iour, which differs from region to region. In general, it would be true to say that rules governing conduct are more stringent in the coun- tryside than in cities, in Eastern than in Western Turkey and inland than on the coast. Throughout Turkey, however, with the exception of the modern urban élite in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, a young woman is expected to be a virgin on her wedding night and thereafter to remain sexually faithful to her husband. Alongside geographical differences with regard to namus, there are changes over time. Attitudes towards namus were more rigid in the past than they are now (this is illustrated clearly in Meyro, a collec- tion of stories by Necati Haksun). It is not my intention to examine the concept of namus and attitudes toward honour killings in earlier times, but we should be aware that ideas about namus have changed over time and will continue to do so.