Woman jailed for ‘hurting’ husband with purse

ADANA

A court in Turkey’s southern province of Adana has charged a woman with “bodily harm” for throwing a purse at her husband.

“I was exposed to violence from my husband for 17 years. He broke my arm; he killed my baby I was carrying in my womb by beating me; he scalded my skin with hot water. He did all of these and he wasn’t imprisoned for a single day,” said Meryem Karalök, who filed a lawsuit to divorce from her husband six years ago.

“But I was imprisoned just because I threw a purse at him,” added the woman, who was put behind bars on her birthday and released the following day as her friends paid a fine of 3,000 liras ($518).

She had encountered her husband at the courthouse where she had gone to attend the hearing of the defamation case against him. The two started to argue and he insulted her again, Karalök said.

She then threw her purse at her husband, and he filed a complaint against her, claiming that she “offended her manhood.”

The court deemed the purse a weapon that could injure a person and handed her a jail time of five months. The sentence was converted to a fine by the court and she started waiting for the official notification. However, she was called to a police station and summarily taken to a prison in Adana.

The divorce case is still on the agenda of the provincial court of appeal in the southeastern province of Gaziantep. Karalök is being supported by the Family Ministry.