ISTANBUL: The parents of a young girl in mainly-Kurdish, conservative southeastern Turkey have denied ordering her brothers to kill her in a bid to cleanse their honour after she bore a child out of wedlock, a relative said yesterday. "The mother and father were not aware of her brothers’ intention," relative Serif Celik said. Guldunya Toren, 22, was declared brain dead on Thursday after her two brothers entered an Istanbul hospital during the night and shot her twice in the head as she lay in bed.
| Rather Paleostinian of them. |
The shooting was the second attempt on the woman’s life. She had been admitted to hospital after being shot in the leg and left for dead by her brothers in the street. Police are currently looking for the brothers, who were reportedly told by the family to carry out the "honour killing" - the name given to the killing by relatives of women suspected of being unchaste upon an order by family elders. But Celik, who collected her body for burial, told reporters in Istanbul yesterday that there had been no decision by the Toren family to have Guldunya killed and suggested that the murder had been carried out on the initiative of her brothers, Anatolia news agency reported. Dozens of honour killings are carried out each year in Turkey but families never acknowledge ordering the death of the victim in order to escape punishment.
| I guess this is one of the fine points of Islamic law. |
Families also usually ask under-age male relatives to do away the victim so that the latter can benefit from reduced sentences because of their age. Turkish newspapers reported yesterday that the Toren family had refused to pick up Guldunya’s body to bury her in the small village of Budakli in Bitlis province. But Celik denied the reports. "We will take the body to Bitlis," he said.
No comment necessary. |