Turkish women took to the streets on Monday evening to protest the killing of a woman by her ex-husband in broad daylight, Turkish media reported.
Bahar Aksu, 34, was fatally shot by her ex-husband on Monday morning while he was trying to drag her into his car from the street with the help of two of his friends in Istanbul’s Şişli neighborhood.
The killing of a young woman in one of Istanbul’s busiest streets in broad daylight sparked widespread outrage, prompting women to gather at the scene where Aksu was murdered. In a statement during the protest, women’s rights activists condemned the act as not just an instance of male violence, but a consequence of social, legal and political systems that enabled and perpetuated such brutality.
“This murder is not a sporadic case. It is the direct result of the patriarchal state. Women face violence at home, on the street, in schools, at work and even in prisons, but they are forced to endure it in silence,” they said.
According to the protestors government policies are forcing women to be “obedient and silent wives” who are dependent on their husbands under the guise of the men protecting the family.
The Turkish government declared 2025 the Year of the Family, a program aimed to support children and promote traditional family values that centers on heterosexual parents with at least three children.
However, women rights activists have said that the program reinforces traditional domestic roles rather than addressing challenges women face at home and in the workplace. Canan Güllü, president of the Federation of Women’s Associations of Turkey, said the program was designed to encourage women to give birth instead of focusing on their protection.
“2025 should not have been declared the Year of the Family, but the Year of Preventing Femicide,” she said. “Only such a decision would have inspired women’s confidence because basically, women want their basic right to life to be protected. In a country where so many women are murdered, the top priority should be to protect this right. It’s a big mistake to reduce women to only to motherhood.”
Despite women’s pleas for protection from gender-based violence, many perpetrators of violence and femicide are afforded impunity by the courts, which is deeply rooted in the country’s legal, cultural and political landscape and often obstructs justice for victims.
In the most notorious case, the life sentence of the killer of 27-year-old university student Pınar Gültekin was overturned by Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals. Gültekin was brutally beaten and then burned alive by Metin Avcı, who was sentenced to aggravated life for “premediated murder.”
However, the sentence was overturned on the grounds that the murder had not been premediated and that Avcı had been “provoked.”
Gültekin’s family appealed the decision, but the appeals court delivered a rejection to the objection on Monday.
The family’s lawyer, Rezan Epözdemir, said the decision was a “legal disgrace.”
“According to the forensic report, Pınar Gültekin was burned alive and her body was encased in concrete and thrown into a river. Despite this, the appeals court ruled — by majority vote — that there was no cruelty or monstrous intent and that the defendant should benefit from unjust provocation. This ruling is a legal disgrace and will go down in Turkish legal history as a decision devoid of conscience.”
This is not the first time the Turkish judiciary has handed down lenient sentences to perpetrators of femicide on the grounds of provocation.
Article 29 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) is often used to reduce sentences for men accused of such crimes on the grounds that the victim provoked the murderer with her actions.
Turkish courts are often accused of interpreting laws leniently in cases of gender-based violence. They also reduce sentences for men based on “good conduct” in the courtroom, which is at the discretion of the judge.
Women’s rights activists said the law should be amended because it does not clarify what exactly can be considered a provocation. In a 2022 interview, lawyer Selin Nakıpoğlu from the Women’s Platform for Equality (ESIK) said by issuing reduced sentences based on provocation, the courts were saying victims deserved to be killed or hurt.
The smallest things such as verbal insults or wanting to separate can be considered provocation by the court. In one case a man was handed down a reduced sentence because he had high blood pressure that “caused him to lose control” during an argument with his wife.
Femicides and violence against women are serious problems in Turkey, where women are killed, raped or beaten every day. Many critics say the main reason behind the situation is the policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which protects violent and abusive men by granting them impunity.
Despite opposition from the international community and women’s rights groups, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a decree in March 2021 that pulled the country out of an international treaty that requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting perpetrators of domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation.
The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is an international accord designed to protect women’s rights and prevent domestic violence in societies and was opened to the signature of member countries of the Council of Europe in 2011.
