Six months after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan scrapped the Istanbul Convention with an overnight decision, a brutal femicide in a white-collar neighborhood of Istanbul spurred calls for return to the international anti-domestic violence accord.

Known as “the Samurai sword murder,” the femicide instantly became still another symbol of an environment that leaves women vulnerable to harassment, abuse, violence and murder. 

Unlike many victims of femicide in Turkey who are killed by partners or ex-partners, Basak Cengiz, the 28-year-old architect who died in a hospital from the fatal wounds, did not know the man who attacked her. “I wanted to kill someone. I went out and picked a woman because I thought it would be easier,” her attacker, identified as university student Can Goktug Boz, was quoted by the Turkish press as saying. Initial reports read that Boz has been treated for substance abuse in the past. He has pleaded mental incompetence, but the women's rights activists and lawyers claim online that the defense is often a ruse that enables men to get away with murder.

The first reaction from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came Thursday from party spokesperson Omer Celik. “I cannot find words to describe the cruelty of this murder,” he tweeted. “It is all women who are targeted in the name of Cengiz. It is high time that we collectively mobilize against femicides.”