On January 9, 2013, the world stood still for a moment. Three of our revolutionary friends from Kurdistan were murdered in Paris by the fascist Turkish state. With great respect we remember and commemorate Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez and condemn the vile assassination with all our anger.
Sara, Rojbîn, Ronahî – three women who resolutely resisted all forms of oppression and fought with all their courage and determination for freedom of all. They were executed deliberately because they posed a real threat to the power interests of the Turkish state as well as to the overcoming of patriarchal rule, and for all that organized against their oppression. One of many femicides of political women organizing and fighting for a liberated life.
Thus, Sakine Cansız, as a woman and a Kurd, played a leading role in the PKK’s struggle and women’s liberation. The Kurdish women’s movement anchored both the establishment of grassroots democratic structures and resistance in Kurdistan to overcome the patriarchal mentality. She never bowed to the state in her life, but fought with courage and determination against its oppressive policies and for the realization of socialist ideas. In Amed, she took a leading role in organizing resistance in prison, because during her imprisonment she never gave up her belief in resistance. Just like the thousands of political prisoners who are still held today under the most brutal conditions in Turkish prisons, where torture or denial of health measures despite life-threatening health conditions of prisoners are a daily reality.
The AKP government, with its fascist and femicidal policies, is responsible not only for the massacre in Paris but also for the death of Garibe Gezer, a Kurdish activist who died in mid-December 2021 after severe torture and sexual violence in Turkey’s maximum security prison.
The memory of the murder of all these women triggers great anger in us. However, we will not remain silent about these femicides. We are grateful for the legacy that these resistant women have left us and we remember their legacy today on the anniversary of their deaths.
Free and revolutionary women are feared and their strong struggle for freedom is a permanent target. But we do not forget who murdered our sisters. We do not forget who tries to limit our freedom and our lives. Even if they cut our most beautiful flowers, they cannot stop the spring.
Let us unite our struggles and realize the dreams of freedom of our pioneers. Let us resist together, because resistance means life. Let us learn from Garibe, Sakine, Fidan, Leyla and all the women who gave their lives fighting for freedom.
Their legacy is our honor and we will not stop fighting until we are all free.
Sara, Rojbîn, Ronahî – Jin Jiyan Azadî!
