JINHA

AMED –The World March of Women (WMW), which started its international transcontinental action of women in Nusaybin on March 6 to call attention to the Rojava women's revolution, has now reached Diyarbakır, where celebrations of International Working Women's Day are ongoing in İstasyon Square.

Thousands of women of all ages began to assemble at Dağkapı Square, in the shadow of Diyarbakır's ancient basalt city walls. They bore signs in a range of languages, with the languages of the marginalized and oppressed taking the frontlines—from Arabic to Kurdish to Spanish. Local regional clothes from all four parts of Kurdistan were seen at the march. The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) bus accompanied the march, packed with an all-woman team from drivers to technical support. The women set out for İstasyon Square, beating their traditional erbane drums, with hundreds flowing into the march at every new street.

Women were in attendance from the leadership bodies of the HDP; Democratic Regions Party (DBP); Democratic Society Congress (DTK); European Feminist Caravan; Spanish Feminist Movement; Congress of Free Women (KJA); and the World March of Women. Abdullah Öcalan's sister Fatma Öcalan was present as well.

The DBP's Diyarbakır Province Co-Chair Hafizeİpek kicked off the rally with  a speech greeting the women of the world and the YPJ. CeylanBağrıyanık, the KJA women's movement activist taking part in meetings with Öcalan, read his March 8 message to the crowd. Women responded with applause and Kurdish slogans in praise of Öcalan.

Maria Tiresi Montirelli, of the WMWSecretariat, said that since 2000, the WMW had been holding international actions to call attention to women's rights.

"And this year we decided to start in Kurdistan. We are marching to reach oppressed peoples from the deserts of the Sahara to the land of Kurdistan, for all oppressed people of Europe." She called on women to carry on their revolutionary struggle for total freedom.

"Greetings to all revolutionary women of the world, from Palestine to Afghanistan to Iran to Latin America," said GültanKışanak, the city's co-mayor. She condemned the ongoing femicides across the world, which have been brought to the agenda in Turkey with the rape and murder of ÖzgecanAslan, but said that the success of the YPJ was important and that the possibility of this international women's action was the fruit of that struggle.

Figen Yüksekdağ, co-chair of the HDP, said that this year, said that all women were greeting a new age thanks to the women's revolution in Rojava.

"They won in Rojava and they won in Shengal," she said. "Now there is a revolutionary women's struggle that is winning against patriarchal colonialism all around the world. Greetings to those struggling in the path of women's revolution. Greetings to the women martyred in this struggle. Greetings to those resisting so that women around the world can be free."

Figen referenced the reigning AKP's statement that "women are entrusted to men," saying that "women are entrusted to the women fighters positioned in Kobanê for their freedom and equality. We are entrusted to one another. Those working towards this goal are entrusted to one another." She said the women resisting in Rojava would never stop until they liberated the entire Middle East.

Figen's party, the HDP, has a complete gender parity system. She said that this was a policy won through the struggle of revolutionary women. She referenced the upcoming June election, when the HDP will be organizing to overcome Turkey's extremely high 10% election threshold and to fight back against the reigning AKP and its policies that try to confine women to the home. Three femicides take place every day in the country.

"With all our democratic political force, with the willpower of women, we will make a new revolution in the worn-down political system of Turkey. We owe a debt to the revolutionary women who walked this same road, a debt that requires us to make sure these elections go down in history as a victory for women."

Selma Irmak, DTK co-chair, took to the stage before a crowd bearing photographs of women who have lost their lives in the struggle for women's freedom across the world, including Kobanê martyrs SibelBulut, Arîn Mîrxan and Viyan Amara.

"To fill this square with women in resistance, women saying 'we're here, we're fighting back,' is extremely exciting," said Selma. "It took a long and hard road of resistance to get here. We're coming from a way of life where our very names, our identities were forbidden and we couldn't leave our houses. But we've come from the slavery of women to the liberation of women."She said that every women who wanted freedom needed to resist, to raise her voice and struggle.

Emine Ayna, general co-chair of the DBP, greeted the struggle for women's revolution, saying Kurdish women were leading this struggle today. A five-year-old girl named Viyan, wearing traditional clothes, approached the stage during the speech, saying she had written a song for Abdullah Öcalan and wanted to sign it.Emine extended the microphone. Viyan's song received minutes of applause and the rally broke out into ululations and traditional dances.

Dancing continues, with the accompaniment of women singers from the DicleFırat Culture and Art Center.

(ekip/zd/fk/cm)