Girl imitates suicide and dies

ISTANBUL – In the Turkish city of Istanbul an 8 year old girl died Friday night while trying to imitate a suicide scene from a TV series. She was standing on her bed with her mother’s headscarf around her neck and the heating pipe, and slipped. This was reported on the website of daily paper Radikal on Saturday.

The girl saw a suicide like that in the series Kurtlar Vadisi, ‘Valley of the Wolves’, in which a secret agent infiltrates in the mafia. She screamed after she slipped, was found by her brother and taken to hospital, but could not be saved.

Kurtlar Vadisi has been criticized for years now, among other reasons because of the excessive violence, but is very popular among Turks. Recently TV series were also discussed at government level. Aliye Kavaf, Minister for Family Affairs, criticized series which showed kissing, because they violated family values. In a follow-up interview she revealed that she did like to watch Kurtlar Vadisi.