i didn't know this happened in turkey

i had always heard turkey was a very modern country. very liberal and very accepting. i guess i heard wrong. i could go on and on about 'honor' killings but it's pointless. i would imagine you can guess how i feel

UN investigates 'forced suicides' in Turkey
By Daniel Howden
Published: 25 May 2006

A United Nations envoy has arrived in Turkey to investigate a reported surge in the number of young women committing suicide.
Yakin Erturk, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, travelled yesterday to the eastern Turkish city of Batman to follow up on reports in local media that up to 36 women had killed themselves since the start of the year. This figure is already much higher than the number for the whole of last year.
Many of the women who have died were allegedly the victims of "forced suicides", where husbands or relatives pushed them into killing themselves to cleanse a perceived offence against family honour.
The family remains paramount across Turkish society and adultery or sex before marriage can be seen as crimes by more socially conservative elements.
The practice of honour killings in Turkey has received widespread attention, and some observers fear that changes to the penal code passed last year have had the unintended consequence of channelling domestic violence into less direct forms.
Women's groups have claimed that in some instances women have been locked in a room with a knife and a gun and told by relatives to end their lives...........