Colourful celebrations of March 8
NEWS DESK (DİHA) - Thousands of women held a March 8 rally calling for freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader whose philosophy emphasizes women's liberation, in the town of İdil.
The town of İdil (Kurdish name Hezex) in the province of Şırnak, whose urban population is around 25,000,saw thousands of women assemble to send messages of greeting to the PKK leader and call for his freedom. The rally was hung with colorful banners and photographs of women who fell in the struggle for freedom, including Gülnaz Karataş (nom de guerre Berîtan) and the three Kurdish woman militant activists slain in Paris, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez.
The rally began with a minute of silence for women who lost their lives in the struggle for freedom. Local women co-chairs from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and Democratic Regions Party (DBP) took to the stage to call for freedom for Abdullah Öcalan. They said Kurdish women would respond to the dominant system in the upcoming June elections. The rally was rounded out with a concert from a number of local musical groups.
Preparations for massive rallies in Van and Hakkari
With celebrations ahead of March 8, International Women's Day, going on for weeks in the neighboring Northern Kurdistan provinces of Van and Hakkari, women have finished preparations for mass rallies on March 7 in Van and March 8 in Hakkari. The Congress of Free Women (KJA), a democratic association of women in Kurdistan and Turkey, is organizing the celebrations under the slogan, "let's organize to liberate our lives like the women resisting in Kobanê." Initial mass rallies started in Cizre and Mersin on March 1. Now, the two Kurdish provinces in the eastern part of Turkey will host two of the largest KJA-organized celebrations of women's struggle and labor.
The Van rally was originally planned for March 4, but according to Democratic Regions Party (DBP) representative ÇimenAltürk who has been taking part in the preparations, the rally was postponed when 10 PKK fighters' identities were released and local people became engaged in providing for the condolences of their families. A YPG fighter's funeral also came to the region that day. But the delya, says Çimen, has only helped increase the excitement for the rally, which Çimen calls "an answer to the state saying that women will be the leaders of the Middle East."
Musicians Nuarin, Özlem Gerçek and the Mesopotamia Culture Center's women's chorus will perform for the crowd. Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Van MP Aysel Tuğluk will speak at the rally. In Hakkari, says DBP provincial co-chair BerivanAkboğa, the province has marked the holiday by sending cards to women political prisoners and holding meetings to discuss the holiday celebrating women's labor in the cities and villages of the area.AyselTuğluk will travel to Hakkari for the rally.
Turkey behind once again on gender parity in representation
The Association to Support Women Political Candidates (KA.DER) released its eighth annual report card on gender parity in representation in Turkey ahead of International Women's Day on March 8. "Turkey failed again," said the association.The only party achieving 100% equal representation was the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), while women's representation percentages in all other major parties (the AKP, CHP and MHP) remained in the single digits. In the report, called "Male-Female Equality in Representation," there has been no change over the last eight years, with women taking very little space in major decision-making bodies, including the parliament, local administration, bureaucracy and municipal government.
In Turkey, women are 77 out of 535 MPs. There is only one women out of 26 ministers. Out of 81 governors, there are two women. Only three metropolitan municipal mayors in the countries 30 big cities are women. There are only a handful of women among the countries undersecretaries, top judicial officials and university rectors. While the HDP follows a co-chair system in which all positions are shared by one man and one woman, the AKP had no women among their provincial chairs in Turkey's 81 provinces. The CHP had just five and the MHP had one. The report called for political parties to follow the HDP's example in running equal amounts of male and female candidates in the political elections upcoming on June 7. Even when women are elected, they face extreme discrimination from men in politics.
(cm/nt)
