Thousands pay tribute to 23-year-old student murdered after trying to aid others
German government considers a posthumous bravery award for woman, 23, who was attacked after she stood up to men harassing teenagers
PUBLISHED : Monday, 01 December, 2014, 11:05pm
UPDATED : Monday, 01 December, 2014, 11:05pm
The Guardian in Berlin
Candles and flowers are placed in commemoration of Tuçe Albayrak in front of the hospital in Offenbach, Germany, where her parents ended life support. Photo: EPA
People comfort each other at vigil for Albayrak. Photo: EPA
Thousands of Germans have paid tribute to a 23-year-old student murdered after rushing to the aid of two teenage girls who were being harassed by a group of men.
Tuçe Albayrak is now under consideration by Germany's president for a posthumous bravery award.
She died on Friday from injuries sustained two weeks ago when she was attacked in the car park of a McDonald's in Offenbach, near Frankfurt in western Germany. She had received blows to her head, from either a bat or a stone.
Blurred footage from CCTV cameras captured the moment when she fell backwards, hitting her head on the ground. She suffered a traumatic brain injury and later fell into a coma.
Her parents took the decision on Friday, their daughter's 23rd birthday, to turn off her life support machine, after doctors pronounced her brain dead.
Her alleged attacker, an 18-year-old identified only as Sanel M, from the Sandzak region of southwest Serbia, has admitted attacking Albayrak and is being held in police custody.
On the video footage he is shown with an accomplice, who apparently tried to hold him back as he began attacking Albayrak. She had earlier intervened after hearing the screams of two women in the McDonald's toilet who were being harassed by a group of three men.
The men were thrown out of the restaurant and Albayrak went back to her meal with friends. But the men were apparently waiting for her outside. Police are trying to track down the women who were being harassed.
An autopsy was being performed this week to determine the cause of Albayrak's death.
On Sunday hundreds gathered to pay their respects on Oranienplatz in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, which has a large Turkish community. Albayrak was Turkish by origin. Billed as a "civil courage" vigil, people held up photographs of Albayrak, some with slogans and written tributes.
Outside the Offenbach hospital where she died, and where people had been holding a vigil since the attack on her on November 15, people brought flowers and lit candles and a pianist played the student's favourite songs as friends released helium-filled balloons with farewell messages attached.
A petition that has so far gathered 100,000 signatures has been sent to Germany's president, Joachim Gauck, urging him to award Albayrak the national order of merit posthumously.
In a letter written by Gauck to the Albayrak family at the weekend he confirmed he was taking the appeal seriously and expressed his "anger and shock" at the attack.
"Nobody can measure the pain that you, your family and the friends of your daughter must be enduring," he wrote.
"Where other people looked the other way, your daughter showed exemplary courage and moral fortitude and stood up for the victims of an act of violence".
In so doing, he added, she had "become herself a victim of a brutal crime".
