Police in İstanbul detained three suspects after the decapitated body of a woman, whose legs had also been cut off, was found overnight in a trash bin, Turkish media reported Sunday, sparking protests by women’s rights groups.
The body was wrapped in a sheet and dumped in a trash container in the Şişli district on the European side of the city. It was discovered Saturday evening by a paper collector looking for recyclable items, the Demirören News Agency reported.
Investigators identified the victim as a 37-year-old Uzbek national.
Police had not immediately found the woman’s head or her legs. While reviewing security camera footage, investigators spotted two men dumping a suitcase at a different trash bin. It was not immediately clear what it contained, the agency said.
Hours later, police detained two suspects, also Uzbek nationals, at İstanbul Airport as they tried to leave the country, the agency reported. A third suspect was later arrested.
Women’s rights groups expressed outrage and called for marches in İstanbul and Ankara.
In İstanbul, large crowds gathered at Osmanbey metro station in Şişli district, carrying banners reading “Stop male violence,” “We demand justice for women who are murdered” and “Migrant women are not alone,” according to footage shared by nongovernmental groups. Protesters chanted, “Women will no longer be silent,” and marched toward the location where the body was found. Their numbers were estimated at more than 1,000.
In Ankara, hundreds more joined a protest organized by the We Will Stop Femicides Platform, which demanded accountability for the killing.
“The perpetrators were so confident nothing would happen to them that they could leave the body of the woman they killed in a bin in plain view,” Işıl Kurt, a representative of the group, said in a statement.
“Even though years pass and cities and names change, violence against women remains the same,” she said.
Turkey does not publish official nationwide figures on the killing of women, leaving women’s organizations to track cases based on media reports. We Will Stop Femicides Platform said 294 women were killed by men in 2025, while 297 women were found dead under suspicious circumstances.
Şişli Mayor Resul Emrah Şahan, who is in jail after being arrested around the same time as İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in what critics describe as a politically motivated crackdown, said such killings were a “major social problem.”
“Femicides are turning into an ever-growing massacre through impunity, negligence and silence,” Şahan wrote on X, calling for coordinated action to address violence against women.
© Agence France-Presse