Kurdistan police detain murder suspect of journalist Nagihan Akarsel

The murder suspect of the killing of journalist Nagihan Akarsel has been detained, the Public Security department of the Sulaymaniyah city in Iraq's Kurdistan Region has announced.

Akarsel, a Kurdish feminist journalist from Türkiye, was shot dead yesterday (October 4) in front of her home in the city.

"A woman named Nagihan Kemal-Akarsel lost her life in the Bahtiyar neighborhood of Sulaymaniyah in the morning. Our forces immediately arrived at the scene and began investigations," read the statement.

"After a detailed investigation, we caught the perpetrators of the incident within a few hours with the instruction of the President of the Regional Public Security Agency and the cooperation of Hewlêr-Koye Public Security.

"The investigation about the perpetrators continues. We would like to thank our patriotic people who cooperated by sharing information with us during the arrest of the perpetrators."

The police department did not identify the name of the suspect.

Citing its own sources, the MEzopotamya Agency (MA) reported that the suspect attempted to flee to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, but was caught at a checkpoint controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

About Nagihan Akarsel

Akarsel was a member of the Jineology Research Center and an editor for the Jineology Magazine. She has been living in Sulaymaniyah as part of her studies on jineology, which means "science of women" in Kurdish.

Most recently, she was working as part of a project for the establishment of the Academy of Jineology and the Women's Library of Kurdistan.

Between 2008 and 2014, she worked as a journalist for the Türkiye-based Dicle News Agency (DİHA), which was shut down by a statutory decree in 2016.

She also was a columnist for the pro-Kurdish Yeni Özgür Politika newspaper. (VK)