At the foot of Mount Artos in the province of Van, a new forest has been planted in memory of student Rojin Kabaiş. The initiative was launched by the DEM Party-ruled municipality of Gevaş district and the environmental protection organization Van EKO-DER. Kabaiş died last year under circumstances that remain unclear.
In memory of the 21-year-old Kurdish woman, around 15,000 acorns and 400 tree seedlings were planted in the ground. The area on the mountain was fenced off and decorated with banners reading: “Justice for Rojin.”
Numerous representatives of local politics and civil society organizations took part in the planting campaign, including the provincial association of the DEM Party, members of Van EKO-DER, and the co-mayors from several district municipalities in Van.
The Rojin Kabaiş case
Rojin Kabaiş was a student at Yüzüncü Yıl University in Van. In October 2024, the 21-year-old was found dead 18 days after her disappearance from a dormitory on the shores of Lake Van. The investigating authorities quickly put forward the theory of suicide—an interpretation that was strongly questioned by her family and their legal counsel from the outset. The family’s legal counsel did not receive access to the first forensic report, which contained evidence of possible sexual violence, until almost a year after the Kurdish woman’s death.
The circumstances surrounding Rojin Kabaiş’s death, the response of the authorities, and the progress of the investigation to date raise many questions from the perspective of human rights organizations and relatives. The family’s defense assumes that this may have been a case of femicide and is demanding complete transparency, particularly with regard to the investigation, the medical reports, and the assessments by the public prosecutor’s office.
Rojin Kabaiş’s family is also demanding an explanation as to why the rector of the University of Van, Hamdullah Şevli, who sat in the Turkish parliament for several years for the ruling AKP, participated in Rojin Kabaiş’s autopsy without any medical qualifications. The family is also demanding that the confidentiality order on the investigation file be lifted.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Bar Association in Van confirmed media reports that two traces of DNA found on the body of Rojin Kabaiş are not due to contamination.