Syrian opposition figure, daughter murdered in Istanbul

A Syrian opposition figure and her daughter were found murdered in their Istanbul apartment on Thursday night.

Orouba Barakat and her daughter Hala were stabbed to death. Turkish police found their bodies in their apartment in Istanbul’s area of Uskudar. The police, however, has not issued any information about the murder yet.

Orouba’s sister Shaza wrote on Facebook: “The hand of tyranny and injustice assassinated my sister Doctor Orouba and her daughter Hala in their apartment in Istanbul,” adding that they were stabbed to death.

“Orouba wrote (news) headlines in the first page and she pursued criminals and exposed them. Her name and her daughter’s name, Hala, now made first page headlines,” Shaza added.

Regime accused

Shaza accused the Syrian regime of killing her sister and niece and said the regime “displaced her since the 1980’s until it finally assassinated her in a strange land.”

Orouba is a Syrian activist who opposes the Assad regime. She is a member of the opposition national council and is a well known as a supporter of the revolution and as a critic of opposition institutions. Her daughter Hala was a journalist in the Syrian Orient institution.

This is not the first time opposition figure has been killed in Syria. Others have met a similar fate such as Zahir al-Sherqat and Naji Jerf who were killed in Turkey’s border city of Gaziantep.

This article is also available in Arabic.