Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Ozgecan Aslan

Young Turkish woman murdered and burnt in an apparent attempted rape

The body of the 20-year-old was found in a riverbed.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS in Turkey took to the streets yesterday in protest at the murder of a young woman after she resisted an alleged attempt to rape her, local media reported.

Hundreds of women gathered in Istanbul’s Taksim square chanting slogans such as “You will never walk alone!”.

The protesters also demanded that family and social policies minister Aysenur Islam, a woman, step down.

Discovery of a body

On Friday, police discovered the burned body of 20-year-old Ozgecan Aslan in a riverbed in southern Turkey.

She had been missing since Wednesday when she was reported to have boarded a minibus to go home, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.

ozgecan fb Facebook Facebook

Three suspects including the driver of the minibus were detained and are said to have admitted to having stabbed Aslan.

A motive for the alleged murder was not immediately clear but the private Dogan news agency reported that the driver attempted to rape Aslan after she was left alone in the minibus.

She resisted by spraying pepper gas at the driver who stabbed her to death, according to Dogan. The driver later sought help from two other people — his father and friend — to hide the body.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition CHP party, wrote on Twitter:

There is no harassment, rape, violence in the nature of women! We will all together say ‘no’ to this mentality!

The crime appears set to become a rallying cause for activists seeking to end violence against women in a country where hundreds of women are killed by their husbands every year.

In November, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stirred controversy when he declared that women were not equal to men.

Erdogan has also drawn the ire of feminist groups for declaring that every woman in Turkey should have three children and with proposals to limit abortion rights and the morning-after pill.

- © AFP, 2015

Read: A 16-year-old schoolboy was arrested in Turkey for insulting the country’s president>

Your Voice
Readers Comments
46
    Submit a report
    Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
    Thank you for the feedback
    Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.