Turkey TV talent show: Woman contestant shot in head Published duration 19 May 2015

image copyright Fox TV / YouTube image caption Mutlu Kaya appeared on the show in April

A Turkish woman who has been taking part in a talent show on national TV has been shot in the head while rehearsing at home, Turkish media say.

Mutlu Kaya, 19, was in a critical condition after being shot in Diyarbakir province early on Monday.

Diyarbakir is a conservative region in south-east Turkey and Ms Kaya had reportedly received death threats for singing on the show, Sesi Cok Guzel.

One person has reportedly been arrested in connection with the incident.

The gunman was said to have been in the garden and fired through a window into the house.

Sesi Cok Guzel is similar to shows such as Britain's Got Talent. Ms Kaya's mentor is Sibel Can, one of Turkey's best-known folk singers.

Ms Can had visited Ms Kaya at the school canteen where she worked in March, in order to make sure she joined her team in the competition.

However, the Posta newspaper reported on Sunday that Ms Kaya had received death threats after appearing on the show.

"I am afraid," Kaya was quoted as telling the show's production team.

Ms Kaya's father, Mehmet Kaya, told local media his daughter had been rehearsing to go back on the show when she was shot at her home in the Ergani district.

"I just want my daughter to be healthy and don't want anything else," he said.

"I am expecting help from Sibel Can, she is like a mother to Mutlu."

"My beautiful girl Mutlu, how could they wound you? I am very sad," Ms Can wrote on Instagram, Agence France-Presse reported.

image copyright Sibel Can / Instagram

The attack on Mutlu Kaya took place in Diyarbakir, a city where the Kurdish women's movement is very strong. The city's mayor and almost half of its MPs are women. But, despite playing a prominent role in society and politics, women are still under pressure from the traditional structures of conservative society.

That is why news stories about prominent female fighters in the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Syria go hand in hand with news stories of "honour killings".

These contradictions are more visible among the poorer sections of the society where Mutlu Kaya's family comes from. For a poor girl living with her family in a run-down one bedroom flat, attracting national media attention could have triggered a fatal conservative social backlash.

And, unusually, her case has yet to trigger the sort of social media attention that previous cases of violence against women have received.