Barakat murder: Syrian activist and journalist daughter found dead in Turkey

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This was published 6 years ago

Barakat murder: Syrian activist and journalist daughter found dead in Turkey

By Carlotta Gall
Updated

Istanbul: A Syrian activist and her daughter, a journalist, have been found murdered in their apartment in Istanbul, family and friends reported on social media Friday.

Orouba Barakat, 60, and her daughter, Halla Barakat, 22, were discovered Thursday night in Uskudar, on the Asian side of the city. The news was first announced on social media by Shaza Barakat, Orouba Barakat's sister. The two women had been stabbed to death, the Turkish news agency Anadalou reported, quoting a police official.

Orouba Barakat, left, and her daughter Halla, were found murdered in Turkey.

Orouba Barakat, left, and her daughter Halla, were found murdered in Turkey.Credit: Facebook/Orouba Barakat

The Barakats came from a large family known for its long opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his predecessor and father, Hafez Assad. The two women were both active in the Syrian refugee community in Turkey.

Orouba Barakat was a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, now known as the Syrian National Coalition, but she had also criticised some members of the opposition. Halla Barakat was an editor for Orient TV, which covers events in the Middle East, and had also worked for the Turkish Radio and Television.

While there was no official confirmation of the circumstances of the deaths, friends and relatives said the Assad government was to blame.

"They assassinated them in a foreign land," Shaza Barakat wrote on Facebook. "For 40 years her headlines occupied front pages. She sought out criminals and exposed them. And today, her name and Halla's name are on the front page."

The two women "were vocal activists in the Syrian revolution, speaking truth to power, and raising awareness about the atrocities committed by the Assad regime," another relative, Suzanne Barakat, wrote on Facebook.

In a statement, the Syrian National Coalition said "The hand of terrorism and tyranny is the prime suspect in this heinous crime of assassination".

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Social media posts on pro-government sites contained hateful comments about the Barakats.

But the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet published details that indicated a similarity to killings committed by the Islamic State. The women's throats had been cut, and they had received a threat on social media 10 days earlier from someone speaking in a Tunisian dialect, the newspaper reported.

The terrorist has claimed responsibility for four previous killings of Syrian journalists in Turkey. A fifth has survived two attacks.

Orouba Barakat had received threats in the days before her killing but had disregarded them, her brother, Maen Barakat, 56, said in a telephone interview.

"Since threats by the regime have become a common thing, she didn't pay much attention to them," he said.

"No items were stolen from the apartment, which suggests that the crime was committed only to kill Orouba and Halla," he added.

His sister was a born activist, he said. "She dedicated her life to give voice to the voiceless, until the Syrian regime exiled her in the '80s," he said. "But still she continued to defend her rights and the rights of others."

She set up a media and advertising business in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and after the Syrian uprising moved to Istanbul.

"She came to Turkey to be closer to her country, hoping that once the war ends she would be able to return to her homeland," Maen Barakat said. "Halla joined her mum in her fight against the Syrian regime, and became a loud voice in defending the rights of Syrians and documenting the crimes against them."

Halla Barakat "was beautiful and lovely, smart and ambitious, and so kindhearted," said Jamal Mano, a Syrian journalist who worked for 10 months with her in Istanbul.

A Syrian refugee in Germany, Nour Sheikh Ibrahim, wept as he remembered the kindness Orouba Barkat had shown him when he defected from the Syrian army and escaped to Turkey.

"She was everything in my life, she was like my aunt," Ibrahim said. "She helped me a lot."

Jobless and penniless, he had appealed to Orouba Barakat for help and when she opened a sewing factory she offered him a job. "She used to help refugees, and the camps," he said. "She was very active. She helped lot of Syrians with money, even those who didn't deserve it." Later in Istanbul she gave him a place to stay.

They remained in touch, talking every few days, and he said Orouba Barakat had become depressed recently. "In the past few weeks Orouba was feeling so down," he said. "I asked her to leave Turkey but she said she couldn't." She lacked a valid passport, he added.

"I remember she used to receive a lot of threats on her phone," Ibrahim said.

Suzanne Barakat also recalled how, in a tragic twist of fate, three members of the extended family - a cousin, Deah Barakat, and his wife and her sister, who were studying in the United States - were shot dead in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2015 in a case that authorities investigated as a possible hate crime.

"Numbness," she said on Facebook, describing her feelings about the family's latest deaths. "Confusion. Shock. Disbelief. I can't think straight."

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