In Şırnak, a forty-year-old woman fell victim to femicide. The woman is Sakine Kültür, mother of five children. The police arrested Ibrahim Barkın, chairman of an association of supporters of paramilitary special forces, for the murder. The man is said to have first stabbed the woman and then set her face on fire. He has since admitted the crime and is in custody.

On Saturday, a truck driver discovered the woman's lifeless body in a garbage dump in Silopi district and called the police. Only an autopsy was able to clarify the identity of the Kurdish woman who was born in Van. The investigation revealed that Sakine Kültür was fatally injured with six knife wounds in the upper body. Her face was burned beyond recognition. The murder, according to the police, happened in a different place, not where the body was found.

The public prosecutor's office in Silopi, which is leading the investigation in the case, also had two of the dead man's brothers-in-law, Yunus Kültür and Hacı Kültür, arrested on Sunday. It was not immediately known what the men were accused of. Both were released later that day following questioning against reporting requirements. The relationship between the perpetrator and the victim is also unclear. According to unconfirmed information, Ibrahim Barkın has been threatening, blackmailing and sexually assaulting the forty-year-old for some time.

Rosa Women's Association: Patriarchal violence in uniform

On Sunday in Silopi there was horror at the femicide of Sakine Kültür. Relatives and activists of the local women's structures flocked to the Palace of Justice and protested against the murder of the mother of five children (two of them with disability). The Rosa Women's Association based in Amed said: "We are familiar with this anti-Kurdish and misogynistic attitude. They have been organized in all Kurdish cities for years as a system policy in state institutions and paramilitary structures. We have also often experienced that this mentality, which appears in uniformed men and commits all forms of violence, rapes, murders, disappears and tortures with the motto 'For the fatherland and the flag', is rewarded with impunity. We know these incidents are not isolated and we know most go unpunished. We have witnessed that the dirty attitude of these perpetrators is a product of state policy, they are protected and supported by all administrative and legal mechanisms. We know the mentality that sees any kind of violence against women as legitimate. Through organized struggle we will succeed in throwing these misogynistic patterns of thought and behaviours onto the dustbin of history. Our call to all women and civil society organisations is to strengthen the resistance against this patriarchal mentality together.”