Gulistan Tara, a 40-year-old Kurdish journalist from Turkey with Chatr Multimedia Production Company, was killed on August 23, 2024, when a Turkish drone strike hit her unmarked car near Goptapa village in Iraqi Kurdistan’s northeastern Sulaymaniyah province. Two Kurdish Iraqi colleagues were also in the car: Hero Bahadin was killed and Rebin Bakir was injured.
Chatr Multimedia Production Company operates Sterk TV and Aryen TV, news channels, both of which broadcast in Kurdish and are funded by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey, the U.S., and the European Union have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization and Iraq’s National Security Council banned the group in March 2024.
The three were on a reporting mission along the Sulaymaniyah-Halabja road when they were hit, Kamal Hamaraza, head of Chatr Multimedia Production Company, told CPJ, adding that the journalists had “no direct or indirect connection to politics or military activities.”
Turkey claimed responsibility for the attack. Citing a source from the National Intelligence Organization, Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency said that Turkey’s intelligence agency had “‘neutralized’ senior PKK terrorist Gulistan Tekik” in a “targeted operation.” She was carrying out propaganda, disinformation, and recruitment activities for the PKK, it said.
CPJ did not find any evidence to support this claim and reviewed multiple examples of Tara’s work that referred to her as a journalist, including video interviews with news outlets.
CPJ spoke to four of Tara’s friends, who said that she had been working as journalist since 2011 at multiple media outlets, initially at Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), which was shuttered in 2016, Brussels-based Hawar News Agency (ANHA), which focuses on Kurds in Syria, and then Sterk TV as camera operator, technician, and video editor. In 2020, she became a member of staff at Chatr Media Production Company.
Tara was buried in Hasankeyf District in Turkey’s southeastern Batman Province on August 30, 2024. Women carried her coffin in tribute to her commitment to women’s rights and placed a camera on her grave to symbolize her journalistic work.
Salam Abdulkhaliq, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region Security Agency, told CPJ via messaging app that the agency would provide comment but did not respond to further calls.
CPJ’s email requesting comment from the Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations did not receive a response.