Syrian activist and journalist daughter ‘murdered’ in Istanbul

A prominent Syrian opposition activist and her journalist daughter have been found dead in Turkey, police say.

The bodies of Orouba Barakat, 60, and her 22-year-old daughter Halla were discovered overnight in their apartment in Istanbul’s central Uskudar district, after friends raised the alarm.

Orouba’s sister, Shaza, said they had been stabbed to death.


In a post on Facebook, she also alleged the two women had been assassinated “by the hand of tyranny and injustice”.

“Orouba wrote headlines for the front page, and she pursued criminals and exposed them. Her name and her daughter’s name, Halla, are now in the front-page headlines,” she added.

Turkish media reported that Orouba was investigating allegations of torture in prisons run by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Halla was working as an editor for the pro-opposition website Orient News.

Since the start of Syria’s civil war six years ago, Turkey has become home to more than three million Syrian refugees, many of them opposition supporters.

In 2015, three Syrian activists from Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, an activist group that opposes so-called anti-Islamic State (IS), were murdered in Turkey.

A Syrian journalist who reported on the fight against IS was shot dead last year.

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