Transgender woman killed in Turkey

ISTANBUL, Turkey, March 13 (UPI) -- A transgender woman in Istanbul, Turkey, was stabbed to death in her home, the victim's friends said.

Bianet reported Friday that Dilan Pirinc, 28, was allegedly killed by a man who later was turned in to police by his father.

"Pirinc had recently filed a complaint about someone harassing her," fiends told Bianet.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Platform said in a statement that violence toward transgender people is on the rise.

"Without an amendment of the constitution's article on equality to include sexual orientation and sexual identity, our lives will continue to be under threat," the organization said.

"For years now, we have insisted that transgender murders are political murders. A political power which resists to introduce hate crimes in the penal code, which refuses to see demands for constitutional equality in a country where murderers are let off with deductions of penalty in a system in which killing a transgender individual is made such easy deserves to be protested to the end."