The lady with sun-shaped earrings: A crowd recollects a murdered daughter | Girls

This newsletter is a collaboration between Kyrgyzstan-based media outlet Kloop and Al Jazeera and is according to reporting performed between 2022 and 2024.

Osh, Kyrgyzstan – When Mediyana Talantbekova used to be about 10 years timeless, she would protect her crowd’s calves. One year, certainly one of them going to graze in a garden of clover, a plant that may motive wretched bloating, and died.

Mediyana, who lived along with her crowd in Osh, a town in southwestern Kyrgyzstan, used to be distressed by means of the calf’s loss of life and felt she used to be in charge.

When her father, Talantbek Ergeshov, a farmer, returned house that night time he discovered her sitting quietly in a nook of the home. “What’s wrong, my daughter? You seem upset,” he recalled asking her.

Mediyana began crying. “Dad, I killed a calf,” she instructed him.

Talantbek comforted his daughter. “Aw my girl, don’t cry, it’s not such a problem,” he instructed her. He helped her remember the fact that the calf’s loss of life used to be no longer her fault and, to cheer her up, he instructed her he would shoot her to the bazaar refer to morning to shop for a couple of earrings.

That evening, Mediyana were given off the bed and going to wake her father. “Daddy, the sun is not rising,” she instructed him, impatient for the year to start.

When morning got here, Talantbek took his daughter to the gold bazaar to get her ears pierced. He nearest purchased her a couple of earrings fashioned like suns. He recollects how glad Mediyana used to be and the way she instructed him: “Dad, from now on I will watch the calves so none of them dies.”

Twelve years next, on a wintry weather’s year in January, Mediyana, a 22-year-old scholar, would fail to show up for her dentistry examination. Her buddies, crowd and the police would seek for her for 9 days till her frame used to be found out within the again backyard of a area in Osh. Talantbek would exit to the morgue to spot his handiest daughter, the sun-shaped jewelry nonetheless in her ears.

Mediyana used to be murdered by means of a classmate who, only a few weeks previous, had drugged and raped her. The embarassment and stigma related to rape, much more so in a deeply conservative folk like Kyrgyzstan, supposed Mediyana first of all didn’t inform somebody. In lieu, she felt forced to “negotiate” a wedding to her rapist to reserve a pace the place she may elevate her unborn kid.

‘She loved this house’

On a bright year in early September 2022, Talantbek, 47, a tiny, solidly constructed guy, wearing a modest white T-shirt and light-weight gray pants, mounted in entrance of the one-storey yellow brick area in central Osh the place he had lived with Mediyana.

“She loved this house. While we lived here my daughter tried to do everything to make it cosy,” he mentioned, describing how Mediyana had adorned the playground with potted flora, cactuses and succulents.

When it used to be heat, Mediyana and Talantbek would sit down at the entrance porch on “toshoks”, vibrant, burgundy-hued patchwork mattresses, consuming tea and speaking about their year.

“She was always a very kind and smiley kid — very friendly,” Talantbek mentioned.

Mediyana spent virtually all her week in Osh – Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest town later the capital Bishkek – which lies similar to the Uzbekistan border.

Town, which grew out of a agreement alongside historical Silk Highway business routes, is understood for the low-lying Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain, which has lengthy attracted Muslim pilgrims and is certainly one of 3 Krygyz UNESCO International Heritage websites.

Easy one-storey properties form slender streets within the centre of town of 300,000, age conventional eateries grant samsa, lamb or mutton pastries baked in clay ovens, and the bazaars are crowded and raucous.

In 2023, about 14 p.c of Osh’s people lived under the poverty form, incomes a mean of $2 a year. For the reason that early 2000s, citizens from Osh, and in different places within the nation, have migrated to Russia searching for higher paintings alternatives.

Potato pies and late-night research

Mediyana’s crowd used to be refuse exception.

In 2011, her mom, Gulmayram, opposed running at the crowd farm to attach her sister within the Russian capital to save cash to create a pristine area. Next that yr, Talantbek, Mediyana, nearest 11, and her more youthful brother, Adilet, nearest 9, joined her.

However the kids didn’t like Moscow and returned to Osh to are living with their family. They might consult with their folks all the way through the college vacations, and Mediyana would textual content and video name day-to-day with Gulmayram, who nonetheless lives there, running as a cashier in a bakery.

Adilet moved to Moscow when he used to be 18 and located a role in a proceed company. Talantbek, who labored there as a safety secure, returned to Osh in 2018 and lived with Mediyana age construction a pristine two-storey crowd house within the peace suburbs, rising apples and breeding horses.

Gulmayram, 47, speaks tenderly about her daughter over a WhatsApp video name.

“She was a very caring daughter and sister. I remember when me and her brother were working in the field, she brought us lunch — potato pies which she’d cooked herself,” she recounted, looking to retain again tears. “She was only seven years old then.”

Gulmayram says Mediyana used to be very goal-oriented.

“She was very diligent about her education. She would stay up as late as 1 or 2am to study,” Gulmayram recalled. “She was very eager to learn everything. She used to tell me, ‘Mum, look, I’m learning this now’. She attended English language courses …  Mediyana used to bake cakes for us and sometimes for her classmates’ birthdays. She was interested in useful skills.”

She would take part in class dancing and making a song contests, were given just right grades and liked to learn novels.

Later the 8th grade, her folks made up our minds to ship her to a prestigious Kyrgyz-Turkish faculty. Mediyana used to be extremely joyful, making ready the entire utility paperwork herself earlier than effectively passing the doorway checks.

The buddy: Punctuality and a ‘pure heart’

Dinara Raimberdieva recollects assembly Mediyana all the way through a morning meeting within the eleventh grade. Dinara had simply began on the faculty and located herself status then to Mediyana.

“She asked if I was new,” the now 23-year-old recounted in a telephone interview.

Later the meeting, Mediyana grabbed Dinara’s hand – next on, she would ceaselessly recognize her buddy’s fingers, asking, “Why do you have such tiny, elegant hands?” and evaluating them along with her personal longer, wider ones – and took her to their English magnificence. The 2 briefly become similar buddies.

“She could easily get acquainted with anyone, she had a very pure heart,” Dinara recalled.

Mediyana had an hour-long go back and forth to college with two bus adjustments. In wintry weather, there may well be delays because of ice at the roads, however she used to be at all times punctual, arriving on presen for the primary magnificence at 8am. Without reference to the elements, Mediyana’s get dressed and sneakers can be immaculate, her bag smartly organised and her hair join right into a ponytail or braids.

“She moved fast,” Dinara recalled. Mediyana would say that Dinara, the extra affected person of the 2, reminded her of her mom. “When I am hugging you, it feels like I am hugging my mum,” she’d inform her.

She liked dressed in shining clothes in college, from time to time ordering customized items. She by no means wore dark. Dinara remembered how, “Before her murder, her last boots and jacket were milky-coloured.”

The determined dentist

On the pristine, sprawling, in part built area, Talantbek pulled out a photograph copy to turn an image of Mediyana protecting a certificates of celebrate from her college.

Mediyana used to be nonetheless in class when she made up our minds to develop into a dentist. “I remember once, when she was a teenager, she looked at me smiling and said, ‘Ata (“father” in Kyrgyz), I can develop into a dentist to create your tooth best possible,’” he recalled, guffawing.

On the other hand, later graduating from highschool in 2017, Mediyana failed the chemistry examination to check dentistry.

“She was devastated. We all told her not to worry and simply choose another degree … But she refused. She said, ‘No, I want to enter medical university and I want to become a dentist,’” Dinara recalled.

So, Mediyana took an opening yr to arrange for the then spherical of checks, which she handed, and she or he entered scientific faculty at Osh Climate College in 2018 with a big in dentistry. Her folks had been thrilled. “I did not get an education, neither did my husband. That’s why we were engaged in farming: crops and livestock. All our hopes were in the education of our children,” Gulmayram defined.

“There are people who are afraid of ambitious goals. Mediyana was not like that. She would set a goal and would do everything to reach it. She always wanted her parents to have healthy teeth, saying it was one of the reasons for her to become a dentist,” Dinara recalled.

Mediyana thought to be wholesome tooth a mark of attractiveness and used to be conscious of her personal, by no means including sugar to her tea.

Beauty dental procedures are unaffordable on a mean Kyrgyz wage however Mediyana aspired so as to give this lend a hand to her family members.

Patriarchy and stigma

At college, males began to “woo” Mediyana.

In Kyrgyzstan, the standard apply of wooing, or “juuchu” in Kyrgyz, comes to a tender guy’s crowd asking a tender girl’s folks for permission for the possible couple to satisfy as a precursor to marriage. Generally, the woman is consulted by means of her crowd and if she is of the same opinion, her folks will give their blessing for the assembly to shoot playground. On the other hand, in uncommon circumstances, the phrases of the wedding are negotiated with out the woman’s consent.

In Kyrgyzstan, about 13 p.c of brides are below 18, in line with the 2019 UNICEF MICS survey, and should ceaselessly block their training to paintings or absorb home obligations.

The danger of younger girls being kidnapped and compelled into marriage additionally nonetheless exists, regardless of the apply being criminalised all the way through the Soviet Union in 1982, and once more in 1994 later Kyrgyzstan’s self determination. In 2013, the prison code used to be amended in order that convicted perpetrators may resist 10 years in jail.

In such circumstances, the family of the culprit would possibly attempt to influence the abducted lady to marry their abductor. On this deeply patriarchal tradition, there are two key views at paintings – the view that if a son has selected his bride, his crowd should assistance his selection, and that, if a woman has entered a person’s area, resignation it could be shameful. In some circumstances, the sufferer is raped and claimed as a “wife”, making sure the stigma can be too splendid for her to go back to her crowd.

Even supposing there aren’t any publicly to be had statistics at the collection of abductions, reporters from Kloop estimated that, within the nation of about 7 million, virtually 450 circumstances of seize had been registered in 2019 and 2020, with handiest 5 p.c of such circumstances making it to courtroom. In keeping with information from the Common Prosecutor, in 2021, 560 circumstances had been registered of which 82 had been transferred to the courts.

When the primary “juuchular” – the suitor’s folks – approached Gulmayram, she requested a nearest 18-year-old Mediyana: “Kyzym (daughter), do you want to get married?”

“No, apa (mother), why?” Mediyana mentioned. “If I’d get married now, I would not be able to continue my studies. Let me graduate from university. There is still plenty of time to start a family.”

Mediyana additionally instructed her buddies she’d marry later completing her research. “She wanted [her future husband] to be perfect – supportive and respectful,” Dinara recalled.

SMSs and a wicked feeling

In overdue December 2021, Mediyana known as certainly one of her closest college buddies.

Aijamal, who asked that her identify be modified on this tale, speaks about her buddy within the provide nerve-racking as despite the fact that she continues to be alive, however she has hassle remembering main points because of shock and the presen that has handed.

Mediyana instructed Aijamal {that a} fellow dentistry scholar were pursuing her for a few months. His identify used to be Abdulbasit Nazaraliev. He used to be 23.

Aijamal recalled her buddy telling her in regards to the SMS messages Abdulbasit despatched, stating his love for Mediyana however accusing her of no longer taking him “as an equal”.

“I don’t want to go out with him, but he keeps insisting and sending me messages,’” Mediyana instructed Aijamal.

Aijamal had heard about Abdulbasit pursuing feminine classmates and nearest abruptly reducing off touch with them. She warned Mediyana to keep away from him as “he was not a nice guy.”

Dinara and Gulmayram additionally heard about Abdulbasit round the similar presen.

Mediyana instructed Dinara that he “was hitting on her and treated her differently”.

“Honestly, I don’t know why, but I did not like him,” Dinara remembered considering on the presen.

She and Aijamal old the Kyrgyz voice “bir bilgeni bargo” to explain Abdulbasit. The word interprets as “maybe you know something”, and refers to any person being subtle or as much as one thing.

Aijamal quickly spotted a transformation in Mediyana’s behaviour. She become irritable and misplaced her urge for food, pronouncing she didn’t just like the scent of positive meals. Aijamal, who had just lately conceived, suspected that her buddy used to be pregnant.

The assault: ‘Her vision went dark’

At the afternoon of January 10, 2022, Aijamal and Mediyana had been strolling house later an examination after they opposed on a bridge at the Ak-Buura River. Mediyana gave the impression stricken.

“You’ve changed, Mediyana. What happened?” Aijamal recalled asking.

Mediyana began crying and hugged her buddy tightly, not able to talk.

Later, “She said, ‘Abdulbasit raped me and I think I am pregnant,’” Aijamal recounted. It used to be the primary presen she had visible Mediyana crying.

Her buddy instructed her that during December she used to be in Abdulbasit’s automobile when, later consuming from a H2O bottle he had given her, “her vision went dark” and she or he misplaced awareness. Later he raped her. Afterwards, he threatened that if Mediyana instructed somebody, he would unfold a hearsay that she used to be no longer a virgin.

Mediyana’s crowd and buddies have no idea the precise instances of the rape, or why she used to be in his automobile with him. She didn’t speak about that with Aijamal. And no person is aware of if that they had any more or less dating past the messages Abdulbasit despatched her and a few touch on the college. The one interplay Aijamal witnessed between Abdulbasit and Mediyana used to be him following her round on campus and talking “nicely” to her. However later the rape, Abudulbasit short touch with Mediyana and disregarded her in folk.

Nurzada Kupueva, a sociologist with the activist staff Bishkek Feminist Projects, who has carefully adopted Mediyana’s case, says “uyat” or embarassment in Kyrgyz and victim-blaming are the 2 major the reason why Mediyana most likely didn’t first of all inform somebody or exit to the police.

“These are closely connected,” she defined. “In our society, if something happens to a girl, she is often blamed, no matter how bad the situation is. It’s always seen as a woman’s fault.”

Kupueva issues out that age the “uyat culture” is more potent in rural boxes than in towns, Osh, despite the fact that a town, is a strict, conventional folk by which “women are even more susceptible to victim-blaming.”

Kupueva believes that Mediyana will have feared being blamed if she’d reported the rape to the police.

‘Negotiating’ with a rapist

Next that year, Aijamal purchased a being pregnant check from the drugstore and took Mediyana to her area. The check used to be sure. “I immediately suggested telling her parents, so the elders could help decide what to do,” Aijamal recounted. However Mediyana mentioned she didn’t need to create her mom really feel “ashamed and upset”.

“Let’s not tell them for now,” she instructed Aijamal.

Aijamal says Mediyana despatched a photograph of the check to Abdulbasit who quickly answered, “We will talk about it later in person.”

Aijamal believes Mediyana met Abdulbasit the then year and recalled her buddy telling her that Abdulbasist had promised to marry her, however insisted that she have an abortion first.

Mediyana refused. “How can I kill this little tiny human being, who lives inside me?” she requested Aijamal.

Kupueva believes it could had been very tricky for Mediyana to speak about her status along with her folks, specifically her father, although they had been similar. Speaking about any more or less sexual dating, or abuse, is taboo, she defined.

Moms also are blamed by means of folk, and Mediyana most likely sought after to give protection to each her folks, Kupueva added.

Mediyana would have understood her vulnerability – that to proceed learning, create a occupation and feature a anticipation of a crowd, she needed to “‘navigate’ out of this situation,” mentioned Kupueva.

“She tried to ‘negotiate’ with her rapist,” Kupueva mentioned, and would have visible marriage to Abdulbasit as the one resolution to a determined status.

Gulsara Ergeshova, 23, is Mediyana’s cousin.

She first heard about Abdulbasit on January 27, when she wanted dental lend a hand and Mediyana steered that she exit to Abdulbasit for remedy.

“The next day, Mediyana came to visit me and as I had not seen her for a while, I was surprised to see how haggard she had become. ‘What happened to you and who is Abdulbasit?’” Gulsara requested her cousin, who she says used to be like a sister to her. “She told me everything about the rape and her pregnancy.”

Mediyana stayed with Gulsara till January 29 when, that morning, she instructed her cousin she doubted Abdulbasit would marry her.

“I found out that Abdulbasit asked a fellow classmate for a date,” Mediyana instructed Gulsara. Mediyana were motivated to stock her child. However that morning she used to be distressed. “I think I will have an abortion,” she mentioned, disenchanted, “because he stopped returning my calls and isn’t answering my texts. He has turned out to be a liar.”

Gulsara thinks that Abdulbasit’s blackmails to unfold rumours about Mediyana greater when he came upon she used to be pregnant. “He insisted on an abortion and they had multiple fights about that,” Gulsara added, crying.

An examination and a disappearance

It used to be a unlit Sunday morning on January 30 when Mediyana left house. She instructed her father that she used to be going to sit down her end-of-semester paediatric dentistry examination. As a result of staffing problems, the college would now and again agenda checks on weekends.

Talantbek says Mediyana left, however returned later a couple of mins pronouncing she had forgotten her handbag.

“Bye, ata!” she known as from your step. It used to be round 8:00am.

Twenty mins next, Mediyana known as Aijamal on WhatsApp. “I asked Mediyana where she was, and she replied that she was in Abdulbasit’s car and they were going to get tested for hepatitis,” Aijamal recalled. An ex-girlfriend of Abdulbasit, studying that they may have a dating, had instructed Mediyana that Abdulbasit had viral hepatitis.

“Mediyana got scared that the virus could be transferred to her baby and insisted that Abdulbasit take the test,” Aijamal defined.

Abdulbasit had resurfaced later ignoring Mediyana’s messages and indubitably to the check regardless of proceeding to push for an abortion.

Aijamal mentioned he instructed Mediyana he’d get the check executed to turn out he didn’t have it. His case report presentations he used to be recognized with power hepatitis as a kid.

The chums indubitably to talk next. Mediyana can be making use of lash extensions on Aijamal earlier than their examination so she may “fly to her husband [in Moscow] all beautiful”, she recounted.

Later they spoke, Mediyana despatched a tone message to Gulsara: “If something happens to me, tell everyone that Abdulbasit took me … God forbid, I am just kidding,” she laughed nervously within the message.

Thirty mins next, Aijamal known as Mediyana. She didn’t select up. A couple of mins next, her telephone used to be switched off.

Later the 1pm paediatric dentistry examination Aijamal approached Abdulbasit. “Was Mediyana with you this morning?” she requested.

“No, I have not seen her,” he answered.

The quest

Talantbek attempted to succeed in Mediyana by means of telephone. She typically got here house to prepare dinner lunch, which they’d consume in combination, however her telephone used to be off. In the beginning, her folks weren’t apprehensive. They idea possibly her telephone, which used to be timeless and wanting changing, had damaged. However nearest her classmates known as her brother Adilet in Moscow to mention she hadn’t grew to become up for the examination. He known as his mom.

“When I heard this, my heart got sick,” Gulmayram recalled. “She never could’ve missed the exam. Never.”

Gulmayram known as Gulsara and requested whether or not she had visible Mediyana.

Gulsara used to be scared. She didn’t understand how to react.

“I decided to call Abdulbasit myself,” she defined. “He answered … I tried to confront him, saying that I know everything about him [how he raped Mediyana], but he was so convincing about his innocence. He even offered to help search for Mediyana.”

A lot of Mediyana’s buddies and crowd had been satisfied that she were kidnapped.

“I talked to her classmates, they knew nothing. Nobody suspected Abdulbasit — he showed up at the exam, right?” Dinara mentioned.

Next that evening, Mediyana’s folks known as Dinara and Aijamal to invite if their daughter had contacted them. This is when Aijamal instructed Gulmayram in regards to the rape. Talantbek made up our minds to exit to the police.

CCTV and a confession

Abdulbasit used to be arrested on February 8 age crossing the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border. He confessed to murdering Mediyana and burying her frame within the again backyard of his house.

The post-mortem observable that Mediyana used to be murdered on January 30 – the year of the dentistry examination.

In keeping with Dinara Turdumatova, the attorney for Mediyana’s crowd, Abdulbasit picked up Mediyana from her house, and drove to his area the place he murdered her in his automobile.

He claimed she had a knife. Safety digicam photos presentations him preventing at a store the place a salesman showed that he purchased a knife.

He mentioned they had been preventing after they pulled up at his area and Mediyana threw her telephone at him. This is when he says he stabbed her. “Abdulbasit told the court that he wanted to take Mediyana to the hospital, but got scared of being arrested,” Turdumatova mentioned.

He were given out of the auto, and, returning “20 minutes later, he realised that she was dead. He took her to the back yard, stabbed her eight more times, cut her throat, dismembered her body and buried her.”

In keeping with the case report, Abdulbasit nearest put the knife and the college paperwork Mediyana had along with her that year right into a bag and threw them in the bathroom outdoor his area. At round 12:05pm, he going to the college for the examination and nearest had lunch with classmates. He returned house at round 8pm, and threw Mediyana’s telephone and bag into a close-by river.

In July 2022, six months later the homicide, a first-instance courtroom sentenced Abdulbasit to fifteen years in jail.

In Kyrgyzstan, receiving a week sentence for homicide is uncommon. In keeping with a 2020 Kloop investigation into femicide, since 2008 there were no less than 300 circumstances of femicide in Kyrgyzstan. Kloop reporters discovered that even if the instances of a homicide had been in step with first-degree homicide, perpetrators ceaselessly gained sentences appropriate to second-degree homicide – this is, 10 to fifteen years in jail.

When it comes to Mediyana, the courtroom didn’t have in mind the annoying instances of her homicide — her being pregnant, its brutality and the struggle to hide the crime via dismemberment, Turdumatova defined.

The sentence devastated Mediyana’s family and buddies who argued it used to be too lenient.

Mediyana’s crowd appealed the verdict. On September 30, 2022, the Osh Regional Court docket changed the former choice and sentenced Abdulbasit to week imprisonment.

Abdulbasit’s legal professionals issued an enchantment on the Ideally suited Court docket to reinstate the actual sentence. On February 1, 2023, the Ideally suited Court docket guarded the verdict. Abdulbasit will spend his week in jail.

‘I wait for my daughter’

Mediyana used to be buried in Osh on February 9, 2022.

Quickly later her funeral, Gulmayram and Talantbek despatched Adilet again to Moscow, hoping the gap can be a distraction, however he would name Gulmayran each year crying.

“He is tortured inside,” Gulmayram mentioned.

Later Abdulbasit’s conviction, Gulmayram additionally returned to Moscow. She may no longer endure to stick in Osh. The misery of dropping her daughter, she believes, has brought about her eyesight to irritate and she or he suffers from a broken nerve.

However she says the week sentence method “justice was done”.

“We keep asking ourselves: Why? Why did he have to murder her? It is just a lot to take in — why would someone bring so much violence to the life of our daughter and make her suffer that much?” requested Gulmayram, her tone big with hardship. “What I can only do now is to pray that God will punish him. That’s it.”

Talantbek, who’s typically composed, breaks unwell when he recollects sight his daughter’s frame within the morgue. Mediyana had appeared a lot the similar because the utmost presen he noticed her, on that Sunday morning 9 days earlier than. In her ears had been the tiny suns he had purchased her. “I bought those earrings when she was in fourth grade and she had them on her,” he mirrored.

Talantbek can’t fathom that Mediyana is long gone. He assists in keeping looking forward to her to go back. He has left her assets in her room fresh — her potted flora, her Quran and her rolled worship rug.

“I understand that I have to move these things around someday,” he mentioned, taking a look into the gap. “But I can’t help it — I wait for my daughter, looking at the door and thinking maybe she will enter the house today or tomorrow.”