Turkey: three held over shooting of female talent show contestant
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Version 0 of 1. Turkish police have detained three people in connection with the shooting of a young woman who had received death threats for competing in a television talent show. Mutlu Kaya, 19, is in a critical condition in hospital after being shot in the head at close range on Monday while eating dinner with her siblings in the south-eastern province of Diyarbakir. The shooter had entered the family’s garden and opened fire through a window. On Tuesday, Turkish police detained three suspects, one of whom is said to be Kaya’s former boyfriend. However, the former boyfriend, named as 26-year-old Veysi E by the Turkish press, denied having fired the shots. “I was against her participation in the competition, but it was not me who shot her,” he reportedly told the police. “Her family always wanted her to participate in these talent shows, but I didn’t want her to. We argued a lot because of that. She was going to participate in O Ses Türkiye before, but I did not allow that. She listened to me and did not participate in that competition.” Related: After years of silence, Turkey’s women are going into battle against oppression | Elif Shafak He said he had been drinking on the night of the shooting, and blamed Kaya for his bad habits: “When I met her I neither drank nor smoked. I started that because of all these worries.” Local media reported that Kaya had reported him to the police four months ago because of repeated threats against her. She had reportedly received death threats for appearing on Sesi Çok Güzel since April, some of them from her father’s relatives. “When they heard that I was going to join the competition, they told me they would kill me. I am afraid,” Kaya told the talent show’s production team. Sibel Can, one of Turkey’s best-known folk singers and Kaya’s mentor on the show, then pledged her support for the young woman. “She is my Cinderella, my princess. I am behind her all the way,” Can told the Turkish media. “These threats should not destroy her future. Mutlu will get a professional singing education. Her future will be as beautiful as her voice.” Can had visited Kaya in March at the school canteen where she worked to support her mother and eight siblings, in order to convince her to join the singing competition. There has been a surge of violence against women in Turkey, with almost 300 murdered in the last year, many of them by their husbands, boyfriends or relatives. A 2013 nationwide survey found that 34% of men thought domestic violence was “occasionally necessary”, while 28% believed violence was an acceptable tool “to discipline women”. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has repeatedly claimed that “men and women were not equal, but completed each other”. While violence against women seldom receives widespread media attention, the attempted rape and brutal murder of a 20-year-old student, Özgecan Aslan, earlier this year triggered nationwide protests and calls for men to be held accountable for crimes against women. |