Turkey’s government and ruling elites are eager to be admitted to the European Union, but there are certain cultural/religious traditions that could be deal breakers for the Europeans.

Such as “honor killing.”

So the Turkish government has launched an unprecedented campaign against the barbaric practice: Turkey works to stop ‘honor’ killings.

It remains to be seen whether the campaign will last beyond its immediate political necessity.

DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY — Desperately unhappy, 21-year-old Sahe Fidan left the husband she despised and sought refuge in her parents’ home. They refused to take her in. A married woman can leave her husband only in a coffin, they told her.

Fidan returned to the husband, and she left him in a coffin. A few weeks ago, she was found hanged in the bathroom, her infant son strapped to her back with a sheet.

Her corpse was discovered when the baby, unharmed, began to cry. Fidan had committed suicide.

Or had she?

After her death in a village in southeastern Turkey, another version circulated. Some activists and officials suspect that Fidan may have joined the ranks of Turkish women forced to kill themselves, or whose slayings are disguised to look self-inflicted.

The killing of women and girls by male relatives who think the females have brought shame to the family’s honor is an atrocity that has plagued Turkey and other Islamic countries for generations. Thousands of women have died, been attacked or compelled to commit suicide in so-called honor killings.

In Turkey, the government has finally taken action. Under pressure from an invigorated women’s movement and eager to win approval from the European Union, the government has launched a major campaign against honor killings, at a level and with a breadth virtually unheard of in the Islamic world.