Women take streets for Ferinaz
NEWS CENTER (DİHA) – The Congress of Free Women (KJA) organized simultaneous marches and protests for young Kurdish woman Ferinaz Xosrawanî yesterday in the cities of Diyarbakır, Adana and Van in Turkey.
Ferinaz, a young hotel worker in the Kurdish city of Mahabad, Iran, lost her life falling from a hotel window, apparently to escape a rape attempt by an Iranian intelligence officer. Her death led to riots in her native Mahabad and other cities in Eastern Kurdistan (Iran).
The Democratic Regions Party (DBP) and Congress of Free Women (KJA) organized simultaneous marches in the Northern Kurdish cities of Diyarbakır and Van accompanied by the music of erbane percussion instruments. At the Van march, thousands marched across the city with flags and signs. In Diyarbakır, women marched through the historic city walls.
Meanwhile, in the city of Adana in the south of Turkey, hundreds of women gathered at Beşocak Square for a rally. Speakers placed Ferinaz in a lineage of Kurdish women who have resisted the patriarchal system at the cost of their own lives, such as Arîn Mirxan in Kobanê and women who killed themselves to escape the attacks of the Turkish state in the 1938 Dersim massacre.
Women stressed the similarities between regimes of violence across the region at the demonstrations. Leyla Avcı, speaking at the Van rally, noted that violence against women has increased 400% under Turkey's ruling AKP, comparing it with the Iranian regime. Xezal Aslan of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Young Women's Assembly called at the Diyarbakır march for "all Kurdish women to ensure their self-defense and stand up for their identities."
(cm/nt)
