Two Young Women In Turkey Were Murdered Within Just Half An Hour Of Each Other And People Are Demanding Justice

Two young women in Turkey were murdered within just half an hour of each other and people are demanding justice.

On Oct. 4, a 19-year-old man named Semih Çelik murdered his ex-girlfriend Ayşenur Halil and his former classmate İkbal Uzuner.

According to police reports, Çelik met Halil, who is also 19, at her house around 3:30 pm local time on Oct. 4, when he murdered her by slitting her throat.

Not long after, at around 4pm, he met with Uzuner, who he murdered and then decapitated, throwing her head over the city walls in the Faith district in Istanbul.

Çelik later killed himself.

Uzuner's family told the BBC that she had known Çelik from high school, but that she changed schools after he made her uncomfortable.

A day after the murders, women and rights groups held a demonstration at Istanbul's city walls, protesting against the rising numbers of women being murdered and calling for justice.

Students in many universities in Turkey also held protests, including at Medipol University where Halil studied.

They are also calling for the government to reinstate the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty to stop violence against women.

The treaty, which came into force in 2014, protects victims and prosecutes accused offenders and creates a comprehensive legal framework and approach to combat violence against women.

Turkey was the first country to ratify the convention in 2012, but the government withdrew from the treaty in 2021, saying it had been "hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality – which is incompatible with Turkey’s social and family values."

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had insisted at the time that the withdrawal was completely legal, and the decision “by no means denotes that Turkey compromises on the protection of women".

Men have murdered 205 women in Turkey in just the first six months of 2024, according to Turkish women’s rights group “We Will Stop Femicide”.

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