Murders of Ayşenur Halil and İkbal Uzuner

On 4 October 2024, Semih Çelik, a 19-year-old butcher living in the Eyüpsultan district of Istanbul, identified by police as the attacker, killed Ayşenur Halil, 19, at his home, and then killed İkbal Uzuner, 19, roughly half an hour later at the Walls of Constantinople in the Fatih district. According to accounts collected from his family, Çelik first invited Halil, reportedly his girlfriend and a former classmate from the high school he had dropped out of, to his house while his sister was away. He killed her there, reportedly cutting her tongue and decapitating her, then called police to report the killing before fleeing. He subsequently met Uzuner in Fatih, took her to the historic Walls of Constantinople, killed and dismembered her, and threw her severed head from the wall in front of her mother. Çelik then died by suicide by hanging himself with a rope and jumping from the wall.

Investigators reported that Çelik had been treated in a mental hospital five times in 2024 for psychiatric illness, had been reported missing twice, and had previously attempted suicide. He had no prior criminal record. A search of his home turned up a sketch resembling Uzuner's dismembered body, along with objects and symbols associated with Christianity and satanism. His father, Adem Çelik, said his son had left Islam and increasingly questioned religion and existence following the COVID-19 pandemic, spent extensive unsupervised time on a computer with encrypted files containing disturbing material, and had previously been advised by a teacher to keep his son away from a particular friend at school. His mother, Hafize Çelik, said she had warned Uzuner's family about her son's condition and that the family should go into hiding, and stated her son had described a mutual suicide pact with Uzuner that she later withdrew from.

Examination of Çelik's phone reportedly showed contact with individuals identifying as Turkish incels, and supportive or provocative posts were subsequently made by incel-associated groups online. Prosecutors took action against some individuals in connection with these posts, and on 9 October 2024 Turkish authorities blocked access to Discord for the platform's roughly eight million registered Turkish users, a restriction that has remained in place.

Uzuner was buried on 5 October 2024 in a funeral attended by the Istanbul Governor and the Fatih Mayor; Halil was buried the same day following prayers at a local mosque. Çelik's funeral was cancelled for security reasons, and he was buried at Kilyos Cemetery with only three people present.

The killings generated significant public reaction, including statements from opposition political figures, and prompted protests across Turkey over violence against women, with demonstrators calling for reinstatement of the Istanbul Convention and stronger enforcement of Turkey's Law No. 6284 on protecting the family and preventing violence against women.