Background
Bahriye Üçok, born in 1919, was a theology scholar, writer and campaigner for women's rights. She worked at the Faculty of Theology of Ankara University, was involved in centre-left politics and served on the party assembly of the SHP. She was also one of the founders of the Atatürkist Thought Association together with Muammer Aksoy.
After she said on a television programme that wearing the headscarf is not a religious obligation in Islam, she was reported to have received a growing number of threats, which her family and circle were aware of before her death.
What happened
On 6 October 1990 a book parcel was delivered to her home on Köroğlu Caddesi in the Çankaya district of Ankara by a courier company, having been sent from Istanbul. The sender's name on it was that of an Istanbul foundation. Üçok opened the parcel at her front door and the device inside exploded. Gravely injured, she was taken to Hacettepe Hospital and died the same evening at around 8 p.m., aged 71.
An organisation calling itself the Islamic Movement claimed responsibility. The killing came months after the shooting of Muammer Aksoy earlier that year and is considered part of a series of attacks on intellectuals.
Investigation and trial
For years the case made little progress, and the person said to have handed over the parcel could not be found for a long time. An operation in Istanbul on 17 January 2000 became the basis of the proceedings known as the Umut case, which considered Üçok's death together with the murders of Uğur Mumcu, Muammer Aksoy and Ahmet Taner Kışlalı. The court convicted several defendants of membership of an illegal organisation and involvement in these killings, and the Court of Cassation later upheld the rulings.
The people who ordered the attacks were not clearly established in court, so sources differ on whether to call the case solved or only partly resolved.
Legacy
Bahriye Üçok is commemorated every year on the anniversary of her death in Ankara and other cities, and her name is often recalled in debates over freedom of thought and women's rights in Turkey. Relatives and professional groups continue to call for the full structure behind the killing to be uncovered.
The association she co-founded with Aksoy remains one of the institutions that keep alive the memory of the political killings of the 1990s.