Women protest against murder of university student

A group of women held protests in Istanbul's Kadıköy district on Aug. 3 after the brutal murder of 21-year-old university student Azra Gülendam Haytaoğlu.

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Haytaoğlu was raped and choked to death, and her body was dismembered into five pieces in the southern province of Antalya by a 48-year-old businessman, Mustafa Murat Ayhan.

Women from Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu (We Will Stop Femicides Platform) and Kadın Meclisleri (Women Councils), organizations defending women's rights, gathered at a center hall at Kadıköy with a big banner, saying, "We will not be silent."

"There is no meaning in mobilizing after a woman is murdered. When women are alive, go missing or face violence, steps should be taken then," Fidan Ataselim, the general secretary of the We Will Stop Femicides Platform, said in the protest.

Ayhan, who confessed to having committed the murder in court, said, "I chopped her body and buried the body parts into a forestland and threw her head down a cliff."

Police officers could not find the woman's head on the second day of the searches.

A funeral service was held for Haytaoğlu on Aug. 4 in her hometown in the Mediterranean province of Osmaniye.

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Turkey, femicide, violence against women,