Last year, 300 women were murdered in Turkey, according to a women's rights organization. The number of unrecorded cases could be far higher as femicides are often filed as suicides.
The gruesome murder of women is all too common in Turkey and news of such crimes repeatedly shocks large parts of the country. The May 2018 murder of 23-year-old Ankara resident Sule Cet is one that has lodged itself particularly deep in Turkey's collective memory: The young woman was raped in the office by two drunken men, one of them her boss. Afterward, she was tossed out of the window of the high-rise block. The men told police that Cet had taken her own life — even though the coroner had detected a broken neck, tears in the victim's anal region and sedatives in her blood — evidence hardly consistent with suicide.
The trial lasted six months and was accompanied by demonstrations and expressions of solidarity from women. The case was also followed with great compassion on social media. The public pressure brought results, with the court in Ankara sentencing the perpetrator to life in prison and his accomplice to almost 19 years in jail.
Back then, women's rights groups hoped the attention the case attracted would prompt a change in society — not just one supported by civil society but by the Turkish judicial system as well.
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