Family of slain Pinar Gultekin speak of daughter's life

HIZAN, Turkey — Pinar Gultekin was a 27-year old Kurdish woman from the province of Bitlis in southeast Turkey.

She was brutally murdered by her former partner in Mugla, southwest Turkey after she was reported missing on July 16. Her body was discovered five days later in a forested area of Mugla’s Mentese district.

Pinar was an economics student at the Mugla Sitki Kocman University. Speaking from the village of Hizan, her parents told Rudaw on Saturday  that their daughter wanted to become a public official before her life was tragically cut short.

She was preparing to visit her parent’s village for the Eid al-Adha holiday at the end of the month.

Her father Sidik recalls the phone call he had with her daughter just days before her death.

“On the phone she told me she had graduated from university. ‘I finished all my studies and I will come back,’ she said. I told my daughter to take a deep breath, next week I will come and bring you back. We came back but unfortunately I brought her body,"  he told Rudaw’s reporter Mashalla Dekak.

“She wanted to be a governor or a mayor. My intention was to send her to America or Britain this year. I wanted her to do her two year internship there. But unfortunately they did not let it happen.” he added.

Women took to streets across Turkey last week to protest her murder, just the latest in a long line of femicides in the country.

According to the UK-based International Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR), almost 120 women have been killed in Turkey since January.

Out of five siblings, Pinar was the only one who was literate.

She used to say ‘I will study. Many of our Kurdish girls also study to become doctors, nurses, lawyers. Let them stand on their feet.’ She was a harmless human being.” said  her brother Wedat.

Reporting by Mashalla Dekak