The girl with sun-shaped earrings: A family remembers a murdered daughter | Women

This text is a collaboration between Kyrgyzstan-based media outlet Kloop and Al Jazeera and relies on reporting performed between 2022 and 2024.

Osh, Kyrgyzstan – When Mediyana Talantbekova was about 10 years outdated, she would watch over her household’s calves. At some point, one in every of them went to graze in a area of clover, a plant that may trigger lethal bloating, and died.

Mediyana, who lived along with her household in Osh, a metropolis in southwestern Kyrgyzstan, was distressed by the calf’s dying and felt she was accountable.

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

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

Talantbek comforted his daughter. “Aw my woman, don’t cry, it’s not such an issue,” he informed her. He helped her perceive that the calf’s dying was not her fault and, to cheer her up, he informed her he would take her to the bazaar the next morning to purchase a pair of earrings.

That night time, Mediyana bought off the bed and went to wake her father. “Daddy, the solar is just not rising,” she informed him, impatient for the day to start.

When morning got here, Talantbek took his daughter to the gold bazaar to get her ears pierced. He then purchased her a pair of earrings formed like suns. He remembers how completely satisfied Mediyana was and the way she informed him: “Dad, any more I’ll watch the calves so none of them dies.”

Twelve years later, on a winter’s day in January, Mediyana, a 22-year-old scholar, would fail to show up for her dentistry examination. Her buddies, household and the police would seek for her for 9 days till her physique was found within the again yard of a home in Osh. Talantbek would go to the morgue to determine his solely daughter, the sun-shaped jewelry nonetheless in her ears.

Mediyana was murdered by a classmate who, only a few weeks earlier, had drugged and raped her. The disgrace and stigma related to rape, much more so in a deeply conservative society like Kyrgyzstan, meant Mediyana initially didn’t inform anybody. As a substitute, she felt compelled to “negotiate” a wedding to her rapist to safe a future the place she might elevate her unborn youngster.

‘She cherished this home’

On a sunny day in early September 2022, Talantbek, 47, a small, solidly constructed man, wearing a plain white T-shirt and light-weight gray pants, stood in entrance of the one-storey yellow brick home in central Osh the place he had lived with Mediyana.

“She cherished this home. Whereas we lived right here my daughter tried to do all the things to make it cosy,” he stated, describing how Mediyana had embellished the place with potted flowers, cactuses and succulents.

When it was heat, Mediyana and Talantbek would sit on the entrance porch on “toshoks”, vibrant, burgundy-hued patchwork mattresses, ingesting tea and speaking about their day.

“She was at all times a really form and smiley child — very pleasant,” Talantbek stated.

Mediyana spent virtually all her life in Osh – Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest metropolis after the capital Bishkek – which lies near the Uzbekistan border.

The town, which grew out of a settlement alongside historical Silk Highway commerce routes, is thought for the low-lying Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain, which has lengthy attracted Muslim pilgrims and is one in every of three Krygyz UNESCO World Heritage websites.

Easy one-storey homes line slender streets within the centre of town of 300,000, whereas conventional eateries serve samsa, lamb or mutton pastries baked in clay ovens, and the bazaars are crowded and noisy.

In 2023, about 14 p.c of Osh’s inhabitants lived below the poverty line, incomes a median of $2 a day. For the reason that early 2000s, residents from Osh, and elsewhere within the nation, have migrated to Russia looking for higher work alternatives.

Potato pies and late-night research

Mediyana’s household was no exception.

In 2011, her mom, Gulmayram, stopped engaged on the household farm to hitch her sister within the Russian capital to economize to construct a brand new home. Later that 12 months, Talantbek, Mediyana, then 11, and her youthful brother, Adilet, then 9, joined her.

However the kids didn’t like Moscow and returned to Osh to stay with their family members. They’d go to their mother and father in the course of the college holidays, and Mediyana would textual content and video name each day with Gulmayram, who nonetheless lives there, working as a cashier in a bakery.

Adilet moved to Moscow when he was 18 and located a job in a journey company. Talantbek, who labored there as a safety guard, returned to Osh in 2018 and lived with Mediyana whereas constructing a brand new two-storey household dwelling within the quiet suburbs, rising apples and breeding horses.

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

“She was a really caring daughter and sister. I keep in mind when me and her brother have been working within the area, she introduced us lunch — potato pies which she’d cooked herself,” she recounted, attempting to carry again tears. “She was solely seven years outdated then.”

Gulmayram says Mediyana was very goal-oriented.

“She was very diligent about her schooling. She would keep up as late as 1 or 2am to review,” Gulmayram recalled. “She was very wanting to be taught all the things. She used to inform me, ‘Mum, look, I’m studying this now’. She attended English language programs …  Mediyana used to bake muffins for us and typically for her classmates’ birthdays. She was excited by helpful expertise.”

She would take part in class dancing and singing contests, bought good grades and cherished to learn novels.

After the eighth grade, her mother and father determined to ship her to a prestigious Kyrgyz-Turkish college. Mediyana was thrilled, getting ready all the appliance paperwork herself earlier than efficiently passing the doorway exams.

The buddy: Punctuality and a ‘pure coronary heart’

Dinara Raimberdieva remembers assembly Mediyana throughout a morning meeting within the eleventh grade. Dinara had simply began on the college and located herself standing subsequent to Mediyana.

“She requested if I used to be new,” the now 23-year-old recounted in a telephone interview.

After the meeting, Mediyana grabbed Dinara’s hand – afterward, she would usually admire her buddy’s palms, asking, “Why do you’ve gotten such tiny, elegant palms?” and evaluating them along with her personal longer, wider ones – and took her to their English class. The 2 shortly turned shut buddies.

“She might simply get acquainted with anybody, she had a really pure coronary heart,” Dinara recalled.

Mediyana had an hour-long commute to highschool with two bus adjustments. In winter, there might be delays as a result of ice on the roads, however she was at all times punctual, arriving on time for the primary class at 8am. Whatever the climate, Mediyana’s gown and sneakers can be immaculate, her bag neatly organised and her hair tied right into a ponytail or braids.

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

She cherished carrying brilliant clothes in college, typically ordering custom-made items. She by no means wore black. Dinara remembered how, “Earlier than her homicide, her final boots and jacket have been milky-coloured.”

The aspiring dentist

On the new, sprawling, partially constructed home, Talantbek pulled out a photograph album to indicate an image of Mediyana holding a certificates of honour from her college.

Mediyana was nonetheless in class when she determined to develop into a dentist. “I keep in mind as soon as, when she was a youngster, she checked out me smiling and stated, ‘Ata (“father” in Kyrgyz), I’ll develop into a dentist to make your tooth excellent,’” he recalled, laughing.

Nonetheless, after graduating from highschool in 2017, Mediyana failed the chemistry examination to review dentistry.

“She was devastated. All of us informed her to not fear and easily select one other diploma … However she refused. She stated, ‘No, I wish to enter medical college and I wish to develop into a dentist,’” Dinara recalled.

So, Mediyana took a spot 12 months to organize for the following spherical of exams, which she handed, and he or she entered medical college at Osh State College in 2018 with a significant in dentistry. Her mother and father have been overjoyed. “I didn’t get an schooling, neither did my husband. That’s why we have been engaged in farming: crops and livestock. All our hopes have been within the schooling of our youngsters,” Gulmayram defined.

“There are people who find themselves afraid of formidable targets. Mediyana was not like that. She would set a purpose and would do all the things to achieve it. She at all times wished her mother and father to have wholesome tooth, saying it was one of many causes for her to develop into a dentist,” Dinara recalled.

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

Beauty dental procedures are unaffordable on a median Kyrgyz wage however Mediyana aspired to have the ability to give this care to her family members.

Patriarchy and stigma

At college, males began to “woo” Mediyana.

In Kyrgyzstan, the standard follow of wooing, or “juuchu” in Kyrgyz, entails a younger man’s household asking a younger lady’s mother and father for permission for the potential couple to satisfy as a precursor to marriage. Normally, the woman is consulted by her household and if she agrees, her mother and father will give their blessing for the assembly to happen. Nonetheless, 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 underneath 18, in keeping with the 2019 UNICEF MICS survey, and should usually cease their schooling to work or take up home obligations.

The danger of younger ladies being kidnapped and compelled into marriage additionally nonetheless exists, regardless of the follow being criminalised in the course of the Soviet Union in 1982, and once more in 1994 after Kyrgyzstan’s independence. In 2013, the prison code was amended in order that convicted perpetrators might resist 10 years in jail.

In such circumstances, the family members of the perpetrator may attempt to persuade the kidnapped woman to marry their abductor. On this deeply patriarchal tradition, there are two key views at work – the view that if a son has chosen his bride, his household should assist his alternative, and that, if a lady has entered a person’s home, leaving it will be shameful. In some circumstances, the sufferer is raped and claimed as a “spouse”, making certain the stigma can be too nice for her to return to her household.

Though there aren’t any publicly out there statistics on the variety of abductions, journalists from Kloop estimated that, within the nation of about 7 million, virtually 450 circumstances of abduction have been registered in 2019 and 2020, with solely 5 percent of such cases making it to court docket. In line with knowledge from the Normal Prosecutor, in 2021, 560 circumstances were registered of which 82 have been transferred to the courts.

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

“No, apa (mom), why?” Mediyana stated. “If I’d get married now, I’d not be capable of proceed my research. Let me graduate from college. There may be nonetheless loads of time to start out a household.”

Mediyana additionally informed her buddies she’d marry after ending her research. “She wished [her future husband] to be excellent – supportive and respectful,” Dinara recalled.

SMSs and a foul feeling

In late December 2021, Mediyana known as one in every of her closest college buddies.

Aijamal, who requested that her identify be modified on this story, speaks about her buddy within the current tense as if she remains to be alive, however she has bother remembering particulars as a result of trauma and the time that has handed.

Mediyana informed Aijamal {that a} fellow dentistry scholar had been pursuing her for a few months. His identify was Abdulbasit Nazaraliev. He was 23.

Aijamal recalled her buddy telling her concerning the SMS messages Abdulbasit despatched, declaring his love for Mediyana however accusing her of not taking him “as an equal”.

“I don’t wish to exit with him, however he retains insisting and sending me messages,’” Mediyana informed Aijamal.

Aijamal had heard about Abdulbasit pursuing feminine classmates after which immediately chopping off contact with them. She warned Mediyana to keep away from him as “he was not a pleasant man.”

Dinara and Gulmayram additionally heard about Abdulbasit across the identical time.

Mediyana informed Dinara that he “was hitting on her and handled her in a different way”.

“Truthfully, I don’t know why, however I didn’t like him,” Dinara remembered considering on the time.

She and Aijamal used the Kyrgyz expression “bir bilgeni bargo” to explain Abdulbasit. The phrase interprets as “perhaps one thing”, and refers to somebody being sly or as much as one thing.

Aijamal quickly observed a change in Mediyana’s behaviour. She turned irritable and misplaced her urge for food, saying she didn’t just like the scent of sure meals. Aijamal, who had lately conceived, suspected that her buddy was pregnant.

The assault: ‘Her imaginative and prescient went darkish’

On the afternoon of January 10, 2022, Aijamal and Mediyana have been strolling dwelling after an examination once they stopped on a bridge on the Ak-Buura River. Mediyana appeared troubled.

“You’ve modified, Mediyana. What occurred?” Aijamal recalled asking.

Mediyana began crying and hugged her buddy tightly, unable to talk.

Then, “She stated, ‘Abdulbasit raped me and I believe I’m pregnant,’” Aijamal recounted. It was the primary time she had seen Mediyana crying.

Her buddy informed her that in December she was in Abdulbasit’s automotive when, after ingesting from a water bottle he had given her, “her imaginative and prescient went darkish” and he or she misplaced consciousness. Then he raped her. Afterwards, he threatened that if Mediyana informed anybody, he would unfold a hearsay that she was not a virgin.

Mediyana’s household and buddies have no idea the precise circumstances of the rape, or why she was in his automotive with him. She didn’t focus on that with Aijamal. And nobody is aware of if they’d any form of relationship past the messages Abdulbasit despatched her and a few contact on the college. The one interplay Aijamal witnessed between Abdulbasit and Mediyana was him following her round on campus and talking “properly” to her. However after the rape, Abudulbasit reduce contact with Mediyana and ignored her in public.

Nurzada Kupueva, a sociologist with the activist group Bishkek Feminist Initiatives, who has carefully adopted Mediyana’s case, says “uyat” or disgrace in Kyrgyz and victim-blaming are the 2 predominant explanation why Mediyana doubtless didn’t initially inform anybody or go to the police.

“These are carefully linked,” she defined. “In our society, if one thing occurs to a lady, she is commonly blamed, irrespective of how dangerous the state of affairs is. It’s at all times seen as a lady’s fault.”

Kupueva factors out that whereas the “uyat tradition” is stronger in rural areas than in cities, Osh, although a metropolis, is a strict, conventional society wherein “ladies are much more prone to victim-blaming.”

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

‘Negotiating’ with a rapist

Later that day, Aijamal purchased a being pregnant take a look at from the pharmacy and took Mediyana to her home. The take a look at was optimistic. “I instantly advised telling her mother and father, so the elders might assist determine what to do,” Aijamal recounted. However Mediyana stated she didn’t wish to make her mom really feel “ashamed and upset”.

“Let’s not inform them for now,” she informed Aijamal.

Aijamal says Mediyana despatched a photograph of the take a look at to Abdulbasit who quickly replied, “We’ll discuss it later in individual.”

Aijamal believes Mediyana met Abdulbasit the following day 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 will have been very tough for Mediyana to debate her state of affairs along with her mother and father, significantly her father, even when they have been shut. Speaking about any form of sexual relationship, or abuse, is taboo, she defined.

Moms are additionally blamed by society, and Mediyana doubtless wished to guard each her mother and father, Kupueva added.

Mediyana would have understood her vulnerability – that to proceed learning, construct a profession and have an opportunity of a household, she needed to “‘navigate’ out of this case,” stated Kupueva.

“She tried to ‘negotiate’ along with her rapist,” Kupueva stated, and would have seen marriage to Abdulbasit as the one reply to a determined state of affairs.

Gulsara Ergeshova, 23, is Mediyana’s cousin.

She first heard about Abdulbasit on January 27, when she wanted dental care and Mediyana advised that she go to Abdulbasit for therapy.

“The subsequent day, Mediyana came over me and as I had not seen her for some time, I used to be shocked to see how haggard she had develop into. ‘What occurred to you and who’s Abdulbasit?’” Gulsara requested her cousin, who she says was like a sister to her. “She informed me all the things concerning the rape and her being pregnant.”

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

“I discovered that Abdulbasit requested a fellow classmate for a date,” Mediyana informed Gulsara. Mediyana had been decided to maintain her child. However that morning she was distressed. “I believe I’ll have an abortion,” she stated, upset, “as a result of he stopped returning my calls and isn’t answering my texts. He has turned out to be a liar.”

Gulsara thinks that Abdulbasit’s threats to unfold rumours about Mediyana elevated when he discovered she was pregnant. “He insisted on an abortion they usually had a number of fights about that,” Gulsara added, crying.

An examination and a disappearance

It was a cloudy Sunday morning on January 30 when Mediyana left dwelling. She informed her father that she was going to take a seat her end-of-semester paediatric dentistry examination. Due to staffing points, the school would sometimes schedule exams on weekends.

Talantbek says Mediyana left, however returned after a couple of minutes saying she had forgotten her purse.

“Bye, ata!” she known as from the doorstep. It was round 8:00am.

Twenty minutes later, Mediyana known as Aijamal on WhatsApp. “I requested Mediyana the place she was, and he or she replied that she was in Abdulbasit’s automotive they usually have been going to get examined for hepatitis,” Aijamal recalled. An ex-girlfriend of Abdulbasit, studying that they may have a relationship, had informed Mediyana that Abdulbasit had viral hepatitis.

“Mediyana bought scared that the virus might be transferred to her child and insisted that Abdulbasit take the take a look at,” Aijamal defined.

Abdulbasit had resurfaced after ignoring Mediyana’s messages and agreed to the take a look at regardless of persevering with to push for an abortion.

Aijamal stated he informed Mediyana he’d get the take a look at finished to show he didn’t have it. His case file reveals he was identified with power hepatitis as a baby.

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

After they spoke, Mediyana despatched a voice message to Gulsara: “If one thing occurs to me, inform everybody that Abdulbasit took me … God forbid, I’m simply kidding,” she laughed nervously within the message.

Thirty minutes later, Aijamal known as Mediyana. She didn’t decide up. A couple of minutes later, her telephone was switched off.

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

“No, I’ve not seen her,” he replied.

The search

Talantbek tried to achieve Mediyana by telephone. She normally got here dwelling to cook dinner lunch, which they’d eat collectively, however her telephone was off. At first, her mother and father weren’t fearful. They thought perhaps her telephone, which was outdated and in want of changing, had damaged. However then her classmates known as her brother Adilet in Moscow to say she hadn’t turned up for the examination. He known as his mom.

“After I heard this, my coronary heart bought sick,” Gulmayram recalled. “She by no means might’ve missed the examination. By no means.”

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

Gulsara was scared. She didn’t know how you can react.

“I made a decision to name Abdulbasit myself,” she defined. “He answered … I attempted to confront him, saying that I do know all the things about him [how he raped Mediyana], however he was so convincing about his innocence. He even supplied to assist seek for Mediyana.”

Lots of Mediyana’s family and friends have been satisfied that she had been kidnapped.

“I talked to her classmates, they knew nothing. No person suspected Abdulbasit — he confirmed up on the examination, proper?” Dinara stated.

Later that night time, Mediyana’s mother and father known as Dinara and Aijamal to ask if their daughter had contacted them. That’s when Aijamal informed Gulmayram concerning the rape. Talantbek determined to go to the police.

CCTV and a confession

Abdulbasit was arrested on February 8 whereas crossing the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border. He confessed to murdering Mediyana and burying her physique within the again yard of his dwelling.

The post-mortem revealed that Mediyana was murdered on January 30 – the day of the dentistry examination.

In line with Dinara Turdumatova, the lawyer for Mediyana’s household, Abdulbasit picked up Mediyana from her dwelling, and drove to his home the place he murdered her in his automotive.

He claimed she had a knife. Safety digital camera footage reveals him stopping at a store the place a salesman confirmed that he purchased a knife.

He stated they have been preventing once they pulled up at his home and Mediyana threw her telephone at him. That’s when he says he stabbed her. “Abdulbasit informed the court docket that he wished to take Mediyana to the hospital, however bought terrified of being arrested,” Turdumatova stated.

He bought out of the automotive, and, returning “20 minutes later, he realised that she was useless. He took her to the again yard, stabbed her eight extra instances, reduce her throat, dismembered her physique and buried her.”

In line with the case file, Abdulbasit then put the knife and the college paperwork Mediyana had along with her that day right into a bag and threw them in the bathroom exterior his home. At round 12:05pm, he went to the college for the examination after which had lunch with classmates. He returned dwelling at round 8pm, and threw Mediyana’s telephone and bag into a close-by river.

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

In Kyrgyzstan, receiving a life sentence for homicide is uncommon. In line with a 2020 Kloop investigation into femicide, since 2008 there have been not less than 300 circumstances of femicide in Kyrgyzstan. Kloop journalists discovered that even when the circumstances of a homicide have been in step with first-degree homicide, perpetrators usually acquired sentences relevant to second-degree homicide – that’s, 10 to fifteen years in jail.

Within the case of Mediyana, the court docket didn’t bear in mind the irritating circumstances of her homicide — her being pregnant, its brutality and the try to hide the crime via dismemberment, Turdumatova defined.

The sentence devastated Mediyana’s family members and buddies who argued it was too lenient.

Mediyana’s household appealed the choice. On September 30, 2022, the Osh Regional Courtroom modified the earlier determination and sentenced Abdulbasit to life imprisonment.

Abdulbasit’s attorneys issued an enchantment on the Supreme Courtroom to reinstate the unique sentence. On February 1, 2023, the Supreme Courtroom upheld the decision. Abdulbasit will spend his life in jail.

‘I watch for my daughter’

Mediyana was buried in Osh on February 9, 2022.

Quickly after her funeral, Gulmayram and Talantbek despatched Adilet again to Moscow, hoping the space can be a distraction, however he would name Gulmayran daily crying.

“He’s tortured inside,” Gulmayram stated.

After Abdulbasit’s conviction, Gulmayram additionally returned to Moscow. She couldn’t bear to remain in Osh. The agony of dropping her daughter, she believes, has precipitated her eyesight to worsen and he or she suffers from a broken nerve.

However she says the life sentence means “justice was finished”.

“We preserve asking ourselves: Why? Why did he must homicide her? It’s only a lot to absorb — why would somebody carry a lot violence to the lifetime of our daughter and make her undergo that a lot?” requested Gulmayram, her voice heavy with grief. “What I can solely do now’s to wish that God will punish him. That’s it.”

Talantbek, who’s normally composed, breaks down when he remembers seeing his daughter’s physique within the morgue. Mediyana had regarded a lot the identical because the final time he noticed her, on that Sunday morning 9 days earlier than. In her ears have been the little suns he had purchased her. “I purchased these earrings when she was in fourth grade and he or she had them on her,” he mirrored.

Talantbek can not fathom that Mediyana is gone. He retains ready for her to return. He has left her belongings in her room untouched — her potted flowers, her Quran and her rolled prayer rug.

“I perceive that I’ve to maneuver this stuff round sometime,” he stated, wanting into the space. “However I can’t assist it — I watch for my daughter, wanting on the door and considering perhaps she’s going to enter the home as we speak or tomorrow.”