Folklore has it that the river never gives up what it is given.
Earlier this year, however, the province of Sanliurfa reacted with shock when Gonul Aslan, whose father tried to strangle her and then threw her into the river, emerged from the waters unharmed. Her crime was to elope with a sweetheart to avoid an arranged marriage. She was to have been punished according to a tradition, which decrees that a family tarnished by an unchaste daughter can redeem its honor only by her death. The authorities have spirited Aslan away to a secret location in the certain knowledge that if her male relatives find out where she is, they will kill her. Killings of girls to cleanse the family honor are associated in the Turkish public eye with Sanliurfa, the region's fiery red pepper, much to the authorities' chagrin.