Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Increase in femicides in Turkey amount to a war on women, rights group warns
Government plans to withdraw from international convention on gender-based violence
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and family members of coup victims walk to place flowers by the ‘Martyrs Monument’ outside his presidential palace, in Ankara, today

FEMICIDE in Turkey has reached a level resembling “a war record,” according to women’s groups, which accused the government of “political murder” over its plans to withdraw from an international convention on gender-based violence.

Activists from the Liberation of Women initiative were among those who formed a “purple chain” in front of the Sureyya opera house in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district on Tuesday, despite a heavy police presence.

They held placards bearing the images of women killed or disappeared over the past year, including Uzbek woman Nadira Kadirova, who allegedly committed suicide in the flat of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) MP Sirin Unal, and Kurdish student Gulistan Doku, who went missing on January 5 following an argument with her ex-boyfriend in Dersim.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, center, participates in a media statement with European Council President Antonio Costa, left, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 7, 2026
Turkey / 7 July 2026
7 July 2026

Israel angered after US president lifts sanctions on Turkey, opening way for potential sale of F-35 fighter jets

IRON HEEL: Police officers storm Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) headquarters in Ankara on Sunday
Features / 26 May 2026
26 May 2026

CLAUDIA WEBBE looks at how Britain’s Nato ally has upped the stakes in its effort to silence domestic dissenting voices

ETHNIC STRIFE: Women condemn, yesterday, a video in circulation that allegedly shows a fighter affiliated with the Syrian government holding the braid of a Kurdish female fighter after killing her, in Qamishli, northeastern Syria
Middle East / 23 January 2026
23 January 2026

VIJAY PRASHAD details how US support for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa allowed him to break the resistance of the autonomous Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)