Women on Streets for Feminist Night Rally

We are Nevin, Çilem, Yasemin, Hasret who struggle to not being raped, or to not being beaten, sometimes to just survive, to exercise our rights to self-defense, to defend our lives. We are the women who say “enough is enough” for the life we live, resist to turn the lives, which we are forced to live to other lives!

“We are on streets because no one else does anything for Nevin who killed her rapist of whose violence she was exposed to for years; for Yasemin and Çilem who were able to set free from the systematical violence their husbands imposed by only killing them; for Avnur who didn’t remain silent for male violence, got involved and murdered; for Hasret who survived the man who tried to kill her with a screwdriver, under favor of neighborhood and women solidarity; for Rabia who defended her living space by resisting gendarmerie and stop the engineering vehicle; for Değer Deniz whose murder tried to be justified by male media for “being a woman who lives alone”.

Women were on street at November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women with the slogan “We resist against male, state violence. We defend our lives”.

Women gathering at Tünel Square on İstiklal Street in İstanbul marched to Galatasaray Square for 14h Feminist Night Rally at 7:30 p.m. Most shouted slogan was “We don’t remain silent, we don’t fear, we don’t obey”.

In the protest, women who in order to survive kill men of whose violence they are exposed to have been drawn attention to.

Women reminding of attacks against Diyarbakır, Suruç, Ankara, Beirut, and Paris, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) attacks, discriminatory graffitis made by law enforcers in Silvan, state’s policies of denial and annihilation, said “We know very well war-manhood and state relation”.

“We are being murdered for saying no”

Initially it has been drawn attention to male violence by statements read in both Turkish and Kurdish. Women reminding that at least 236 women were murdered within first 10 months in 2015 said, “We face death every day for saying ‘No!’, for seeking divorce, for filing complaint to court, for applying to shelter, for shouting against male violence, or for even asking for help from women around us. We are forced to struggle at every moment in our lives against AKP (Justice and Development Party) government just to have right to live on ‘equal footing’.”

Women noting the judiciary justifies murderers over “extreme love in form of passion” said “We are on street against the state which says nothing against the murderers and is responsible for femicide!”

The statement also touched upon increasing harassment incidents at universities, violations that refugee women face, transwomen who live under the threat of being murdered, lesbian and bisexual women whose identities have been made invisible, and sex workers who don’t have work and life safety. (ÇT/TK)

Click here to read the article in Turkish