Teacher killed despite asking officials’ help

ISTANBUL - Radikal

Hürriyet photo

Details revealed following the killing of a young schoolteacher by her ex-boyfriend revealed she had applied to the governor’s office for protection but was refused.

Zafer Coşkun, deputy governor of the eastern province of Van, allegedly told 27-year-old Gülşah Aktürk “at worst you will die,” after the female teacher complained to a local court about threats from her ex-boyfriend. On Dec. 6 she was killed while trying to take shelter with her family in the Central Anatolian province of Konya.

“Coşkun told me, ‘at worst you will die.’ He said I could not escape from death and that death was a right. ‘You can die or you can resign,’ he said. He continued to demoralize me by saying that it was my mistake to become friends with such ridiculous people,” Aktürk had stated in her original court petition. Coşkun denies the allegations.

Aktürk, a primary school teacher working in Van, complained to a court about her ex-boyfriend, identified as 36-year-old Hakan Başar, who had been sending her death threats since their breakup. Başar is being held responsible for Aktürk’s death in Konya on Dec. 6.

In her petition Aktürk had declared that the authorities who failed to recognize the seriousness of her situation would be responsible for her death if she was killed.