A 62-year-old mother is facing two to five years in prison for throwing a slipper at her 38-year-old son in the southwestern province of Denizli, Turkey, amid worries from the defendant’s lawyers that the case could set a precedent.
The son, Hasan Güzel, filed a complaint to police about his mother, Şenay Güzel, after she allegedly threw a slipper at him.
After the woman provided testimony at the police station, she was charged with “attempting to cause deliberately light injury.”
The incident occurred on May 13 in the Haydar neighborhood of Denizli’s Honaz district, during which the mother and the son, who live in the same apartment but on different floors, started to argue over a disagreement in the family. Hasan Güzel shouted at his mother in front of her door, leading her to throw plastic slippers at her son after he reportedly insulted her. The slippers failed to strike the man.
Nonetheless, Hasan Güzel filed a complaint about his mother at the Honaz police station following the incident.
The prosecutor launched an investigation upon the complaint and prepared a criminal charge regarding the case, in which he sought imprisonment of between two and five years on the grounds that the slippers could be deemed an offensive weapon.
Şenay Güzel said she did not know slippers were considered weapons. “I threw my slipper because my son insulted me. It didn’t even hit him. If I had known that slippers count as weapons, I wouldn’t have thrown them. And so what if this slipper hit someone? It wouldn’t even hurt. Is there any mother who does not throw slippers at her child when she’s angry at them?”
Hasan Ozan Orpak, Şenay Güzel’s lawyer, said they were impatiently waiting for the ruling. “From now on, mothers should think twice before throwing slippers. We don’t know if every slipper-throwing mother will be tried now. But if a complaint is filed, why not? These mothers may be sentenced to prison from two to five years.”
How weird?