Fatma Demir

Fatma Demir ( 1899 / 1900 - 14. December 1931 ) was the first woman in the Republic of Turkey following a ruling by an Ordinary Court executed was. She was the daughter of a certain Hasan and lived in the late 1920s in the village Darıbükü in nahiye Cebel (now district Sütçüler ) in the province of Isparta . Demir was nicknamed Tokalı . At that time there was bitter poverty in the village and due to the war of liberation there were too few men.

The fact

Demir invited her victim Ümmüşani to break the fast in the house of a co-conspiratorial woman and slew Ümmüşani with the handle of an ax during the ritual Teravih prayer . The conspirators initially hid the corpse in the stable. Later, when the smell threatened to betray them, they put it in a large sack there called harar and weighed it down with stones at night in the Köprüçay River.

Motive, verdict and execution

There are contradicting statements about the motive, but according to the parliamentary minutes it was a contract killing . The client was the victim's husband and his lover Hanife, whom he wanted to marry after the murder. Another woman named Ayşe, in whose house the act took place, was also involved in the planning and execution. The price of the murder was a "Yirmilik gold coin" and a piece of farmland.

The deed and the conspirators were exposed. The less gifted twin brother Eşrefs gossiped and the villagers became suspicious. Demir was interrogated, arrested and tried. The judge, who found it difficult to believe that Demir was capable of such an act, is said to have insisted: "My daughter, is it possible that you did not commit this murder?" Demir's answer is recorded as follows: "No, Mr. Judge. I'm telling the truth, for God's sake. I struck with my white hands."

Demir was sentenced to death . The judgment was confirmed by the revision body and the parliament approved the execution . Demir was hanged on December 14, 1931 . As a deterrent, the execution took place in public on the Tuzpazarı market square near the "Prison for Serious Crimes in Isparta". Demir's last words were affetsin to Allah (may God forgive it).

Trivia

In 2013 a documentary was made about Fatma Demir's story. The title is Dar Ağacına Takılan Düşler (roughly: "Dreams caught in the gallows"). The village and the grave of the victim are to be flooded as part of the Kasımlar Barajı dam project .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Protocols of the Turkish Parliament, p. 33
2. ↑ Darağacındaki ilk kadının 82 yıllık sırrı (Turkish)
3. ↑ Radikal daily newspaper from November 11, 2012