Mourners Gather in Germany for Funeral of Slain ‘Hero’ Tugce Albayrak

Hundreds of mourners in Germany paid their respects on Wednesday to the student-teacher hailed as a martyr after succumbing to injuries she had sustained after standing up for two girls who were being harassed in a fast food restaurant.

Some 1,500 people, including politicians and religious leaders, gathered to recall Tugce Albayrak with a communal prayer at a mosque east of Frankfurt, the Guardian reports. “Her warmhearted and generous nature set a worthy example for others to follow,” Volker Bouffier, the prime minister of Hesse state, said. Friends and family then took part in a funeral service in Bad Soden-Salmünster, her birthplace.

Albayrak had been in a coma for two weeks after the Nov. 15 attack when her parents took her off life support on Friday, her 23rd birthday. Germany’s president has been deluged with requests to posthumously honor the woman with a national medal of honor.

[The Guardian]