Fadime Şahindal (2 April 1975, in
Elbistan
Elbistan (;Aksüt, Ali"''On the Alevism of Elbistan, Nurhak, Ekinozu and Afsin - Elbistan Nurhak Ekinözü Afşin Aleviliği Üzerine - Zum Alevitentum in Elbistan, Nurhak, Ekinözü und Afşin''"- Alevilik-Bektaşilik Araştırmaları Dergisi 201 ...
– 21 January 2002, in
Uppsala
Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Loc ...
) was a
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish language
** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji)
**Central Kurdish (Sorani)
**Southern Kurdish
** Laki Kurdish
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern ...
immigrant who moved to Sweden from Turkey at the age of seven. She was murdered by her father, Rahmi, in January 2002 in an
honour killing
An honor killing (American English), ''honour killing'' (Commonwealth English), or ''shame killing'' is a type of murder in which a person, usually a woman or girl, is killed by or at the behest of male members of their family or their male ...
.
Life
Fadime Şahindal was born in 1975 in the southeastern, Kurdish part of
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
, in a small village outside the city of
Elbistan
Elbistan (;Aksüt, Ali"''On the Alevism of Elbistan, Nurhak, Ekinozu and Afsin - Elbistan Nurhak Ekinözü Afşin Aleviliği Üzerine - Zum Alevitentum in Elbistan, Nurhak, Ekinözü und Afşin''"- Alevilik-Bektaşilik Araştırmaları Dergisi 201 ...
. She described her family as happy people who worked together with agriculture and animal husbandry, where everyone knew their role and task. However, Fadime Şahindal and her younger sister Songül also stated that they were beaten as children.
When Fadime Şahindal was seven years old, she, her mother, brother and five sisters moved to Sweden. Her father had migrated to Sweden a few years earlier, in 1981, before the family followed. Fadime Şahindal's life in Sweden began in the Nyby district of
Uppsala
Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Loc ...
. Later, she attended Gränbyskolan elementary school in Uppsala.
Fadime Şahindal was a talented pupil but her parents hid from her the university acceptance letter. She only found out by chance that she had been accepted for a course in
social studies
In many countries' curricula, social studies is the combined study of humanities, the arts, and social sciences, mainly including history, economics, and civics. The term was coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as ...
at
Mid Sweden University
Mid Sweden University () is a Swedish state university located in the region around the geographical center of Sweden. It has two campuses: one in Östersund and one in Sundsvall. The University was founded in 1993 as the result of a merge ...
.
She was opposed to her family's insistence on
arranging her marriage to
a male cousin who lived in their Kurdish native village in Turkey. Instead she opted to pursue a relationship with a Swedish man.
At first she kept the relationship secret, but her father found out about it. Şahindal then left her family and moved to
Sundsvall
Sundsvall () is a city and the seat of Sundsvall Municipality in Västernorrland County, Sweden. It has a population of 58,807 as of 2020; more than 95,000 live in the municipal area. It is Sweden's 21st largest city by population. Old town i ...
, where her brother found her and threatened her. She went to the police, who advised her at first to talk to her family. She then turned to the media with her story, after which she turned again to the police and was offered a protected identity. By turning to the media, Şahindal managed to receive support from the Swedish authorities. She filed a lawsuit against her father and brother, accusing them of unlawful threats, and won.
Şahindal was scheduled to move in with her boyfriend, Patrick, the following month, in June 1998, when he died in a car accident. He was buried in
Uppsala
Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Loc ...
. Her father forbade her to visit Uppsala, since he did not want her to visit her boyfriend's grave.
Nalin Pekgul
Nalin Pekgul (née Baksi, born 30 April 1967) is a Swedish Social Democratic politician, nurse and former parliamentarian. She was the first Muslim woman to sit in the Swedish Parliament.
Life
Pekgul was born to Kurdish parents in Batman, Turk ...
, a Kurdish-Swedish parliamentarian, negotiated a compromise in which Şahindal agreed to stay away from Uppsala and her father promised not to stalk her.
On 20 November 2001, the Violence Against Women network arranged a seminar on the topic "Integration on whose terms?" During the seminar, Şahindal spoke in front of the
Riksdag
The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...
about her personal story.
Murder
On 21 January 2002, Şahindal to stop in Uppsala on the way to Stockholm, where she would go to arrange plans for a trip to
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
. Missing her mother and sisters, she arranged to secretly meet them at her sister's apartment, which Rahmi soon discovered. The family watched television during the afternoon, and at 7:15 their mother entered the apartment. They hugged each other, locked the door and then waited for the youngest sister to come home. Later, the doorbell rang, and they thought it was the youngest sister who came; however, the caller was the father, who they could see through the door's peephole. They didn't answer the door when he rang, but the father waited for her outside. However, it became quiet in the stairwell after half an hour.
Later, when Fadime Şahindal was about to leave the apartment to go to her friend's house and sleep over, she opened the door and met her father. He pointed a gun at her, grabbed her hair and shot her twice in the head in front of her mother and two sisters. One shot hit her in the forehead and the other in the jaw. At 9:54 pm, Şahindal's sister Songül called an SOS Alarm. The autopsy showed that Şahindal was killed by the first shot.
Investigation and trial
Confronted by police, Rahmi Şahindal confessed and said in his defence that he was ill. Despite the confession, one of her cousins later tried to convince the police that he had killed her. During the trial, her father said that another man killed Şahindal, but claimed that he could not reveal the killer's identity under threat of death.
Her father was ultimately convicted of
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...
by a Swedish court and sentenced to
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...
. He was released in 2018 after 16 years in prison. The murder shocked Sweden, with many highlighting in the subsequent social debate that the murder could have been prevented if the many preexisting reports on honour culture had been taken more seriously. On 4 February, Fadime Şahindal was buried in Uppsala Cathedral. The officiant was deacon Tuulikki Koivunen Bylund.
Crown Princess Victoria
Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland (Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée; born 14 July 1977) is the heir apparent to the Swedish throne, as the eldest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf. If she ascends to the throne as expect ...
, a number of ministers and thousands of visitors came to the commemoration.
Her murder also sparked debates in Sweden about immigrant integration and raised questions regarding Patrick's death.
See also
*
Honor-related violence in Sweden
*
Pela Atroshi
*
Banaz Mahmod
Banaz Mahmod (, 16 December 1985 – 24 January 2006) was a 20-year-old Iraqi Kurdish woman who lived in Mitcham, South London, England. She was murdered on the orders of her family in a so-called honour killing because she ended a violent and ab ...
*
Hatun Sürücü
*
Murder of Ahmet Yıldız
The murder of Ahmet Yıldız occurred on 15 July 2008 in Üsküdar, Istanbul. The anti-LGBT hate crime was committed as an honour killing by his father Yahya Yıldız, in what has been widely referred to as the first known case of an anti-gay hono ...
Further reading
*Akpinar, Aylin.
The honour/shame complex revisited: violence against women in the migration context" ''
Women's Studies International Forum
''Women's Studies International Forum'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering feminist research in the area of women's studies and other disciplines. The journal is published by Elsevier and its editor-in-chief is Kalwant Bhopal ( ...
''. Volume 26, Issue 5, September–October 2003, Pages 425–442.
DOI10.1016/j.wsif.2003.08.001
* Rea
*
References
Sources
*Dietz, Mayanna. (February 5, 2002).
Kurd murder sparks ethnic debate CNN.com. Retrieved on March 4, 2007.
*Williams, Carol J. (March 8, 2002).
'Honor killing' shakes up Sweden after man slays daughter who wouldn't wed. Seattle Times.com. Retrieved on March 4, 2007.
*
External links
Fadime's memorial page(Swedish)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sahindal, Fadime
1975 births
2002 deaths
2002 murders in Sweden
21st century in Uppsala County
Burials at Uppsala old cemetery
Deaths by firearm in Sweden
Female murder victims
Filicides
Honor killing in Sweden
Honor killing victims
January 2002 crimes in Europe
January 2002 in Sweden
Swedish people of Kurdish descent
Swedish anti-capitalists
Swedish anti-fascists
Swedish communists
Swedish environmentalists
Swedish feminists
Swedish Marxists
Swedish pacifists
Swedish republicans
Swedish social democrats
Swedish social liberals
Violence against women in Sweden