[The following press release was issued by the Women`s Freedom Assembly this week]
To the Press and Public Opinion:
We will be meeting in Varto to confront male dominant state violence
A woman PKK guerilla was killed in a clash in Varto. Being a woman, evidently, it wasn’t enough that she died, this didn’t cool down the fury of men from special ops forces. They stripped her naked, took her pictures and put them on the web. Now, the governor of Muş is after those who shared the photos, not after the culprits of this wholesale massacre.
We are well aware why woman guerilla Kevser Ertürk (Ekin Van) was stripped naked. This war is as much a war launched against the society as a whole and women as it is one against Kurds. Those who refuse to tolerate any kind of objection are engaged in an effort to humiliate, scare and intimidate the society and women over the nakedness of a woman’s body. However, the state in its act of stripping Ekin naked, has once again unmasked its rapist male dominant nature, and laid bare its hatred for women, war criminality and utter disrepect for all values. We on the other hand have put on our resistance and no sort of male state violence can tear us off this resistance.
Women meet in Varto
Kurdish people are well informed about what the state says when a woman is dragged along on the ground, when her body stripped naked is thrown on the street. Throughout the 90s we were witness to those who inscribed their hatred for a people on guerilla women’s bodies, raping them, tying and dragging their naked bodies with cars, tearing them to pieces.
The negotiations and the Dolmabahçe accord included arrangements to reveal the responsibles of these atrocities and to make sure that what we went through in the 90s would never be repeated. Ignoring this accord, the President and the government have blocked the democratization of Turkey and have dragged the society into ruthless war circumstances.
Women meet in Varto
Let us now prevent possible massacres. Let us not allow them rip Kurdish geography away from us with police, special ops forces, special security zones, helicopter noise, machine gun fire. Let us not leave Kurdish women all alone in their anxiety and resistance.
If men’s brotherhood is that of Abel and Cain we have a sisterhood of our own, deeply different from theirs.
The President may attempt to legitimize his oppression of Kurdish people with an emphasis on Abel and Cain. But the naked woman’s body lying on the ground is proof that the President and the government have no respect for any divine or human force.
With us, we take our women’s solidarity, humanity, love and respect to Varto.
Starting with Varto, we will halt a recurrence of the 90s and the execution of a massacre in our country in our name.
All women who want to raise women’s solidarity in Varto, who want to act in solidarity with women who had to bear witness to the state violence and threat in Varto, will be meeting in Varto at 13:00 on Wednesday, August the 19th.
Kadın Özgürlük Meclisi- KÖM
Women’s Freedom Assembly