Murder of Fadime Şahindal

Fadime Şahindal was born in 1975 in a Kurdish village near Elbistan, in southeastern Turkey. At age seven she moved to Sweden with her mother, brother, and sisters to join her father, who had migrated earlier in 1981. The family settled in the Nyby district of Uppsala, where Şahindal attended Gränbyskolan elementary school and was described as a talented student. Her parents concealed from her a university acceptance letter, which she discovered only by chance; she went on to be accepted into a social studies course at Mid Sweden University.

Şahindal's family insisted she marry a male cousin living in their native village in Turkey. She refused and instead pursued a relationship with a Swedish man, initially in secret. When her father discovered the relationship, Şahindal left her family and moved to Sundsvall. Her brother tracked her down and threatened her. Police initially advised her to speak with her family rather than intervene directly. She subsequently went to the media with her story, which helped her obtain support from Swedish authorities, including a protected identity. She filed and won a lawsuit against her father and brother for unlawful threats. In June 1998, shortly before she was due to move in with her boyfriend, Patrick, he died in a car accident and was buried in Uppsala. Her father forbade her from visiting Uppsala to see the grave; Kurdish-Swedish parliamentarian Nalin Pekgul negotiated a compromise under which Şahindal agreed to stay away from Uppsala in exchange for her father's promise not to stalk her. On 20 November 2001, Şahindal spoke before the Swedish Riksdag at a seminar on integration, describing her personal experience.

On 21 January 2002, Şahindal stopped in Uppsala en route to Stockholm and secretly arranged to meet her mother and sisters at her sister's apartment. Her father discovered the meeting and came to the apartment. When Şahindal later opened the door to leave, he pointed a gun at her, grabbed her hair, and shot her twice in the head — once in the forehead and once in the jaw — in front of her mother and two sisters. The autopsy determined the first shot was fatal. Her sister Songül called emergency services at 9:54 pm.

Confronted by police, her father, Rahmi Şahindal, confessed but claimed illness as a defence. At trial he alternately claimed another man had killed his daughter, saying he could not name this person under threat of death; a cousin separately attempted to convince police that he himself had committed the killing. A Swedish court convicted Rahmi Şahindal of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was released in 2018 after 16 years in custody.

The killing prompted widespread public debate in Sweden regarding honour-related violence, immigrant integration, and prior reports about honour culture that some argued, had they been acted upon, might have prevented her death. Şahindal was buried on 4 February 2002 in Uppsala Cathedral in a ceremony attended by Crown Princess Victoria, government ministers, and thousands of others.