JINHA

NEWS CENTER – In Kurdistan and Turkey, hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets for hundreds of celebrations of International Women's Day. Messages emphasizing the spirit of the YPJ's resistance and women's determination to stop femicide dominated the celebrations in the region, which lasted for two weeks. JINHA's comprehensive March 8 coverage shows that there were over 400 celebrations of March 8 in Northern Kurdistan, Turkey, Southern Kurdistan and Rojava.

For women in Turkey and Kurdistan, the last year has been one of mourning, rage and sacrifice. Patriarchal attacks this year had a chilling brutality: from Daesh's abduction of over 7,000 Êzîdî women from their homeland in the mountains of Shengal, in August in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, to the rape and burning alive of university student Özgecan Aslan in February in Turkey's Mersin province.

The peculiar savagery of the attacks did not seem to cow women, but only awakened the spirit of rebellion and solidarity. "Self-defense" was the word of hope on everyone's lips at March 8 celebrations this year, with YPJ women and Özgecan Aslan becoming heroes for women across the region.

"Özgecan Aslan is our rebellion," was a common slogan, referring to Özgecan's heroic efforts to defend herself from the three men who attacked her in the minibus late at night as she returned from campus. "Let's liberate ourselves like the women in Kobanê" was the slogan of the March 8 campaign led by the newly-formed democratic women's organization the Congress of Free Women (KJA), seen on banners across the region along. Photos of famous martyred women freedom fighters in Kobanê, from Arîn Mîrxan to Kader Ortakaya, smiled down on the crowds from signs across Kurdistan and Turkey.

The multi-week celebrations kicked off this year in two major centers: Mersin and Cizre. Mersin women, who have been in a state of rebellion since the murder of Özgecan Aslan, started off celebrations with a massive march, overcoming police barricades and repression. In Cizre, in the mountains of Kurdistan's Şırnak province, women of all ages came out in their colorful regional clothes, lining up in rainbow lines to dance traditional dances and celebrate women's resistance.

As the holiday got closer, women from across the world and the four parts of Kurdistan descended on the border city of Nusaybin to kick off the World March of Women. The fourth international action of the world feminist movement is celebrating women's labor and ecological struggle this year with a march that will make its way across Kurdistan, Turkey, Greece and Europe, holding solidarity actions along the way.

The March kicked off with a border action at Nusaybin, where women from the Rojava and Northern Kurdish sides of the border came together to greet each other and salute the ongoing Rojava women's revolution from across the Turkish state's barbed wire. Thereafter, the march headed for Diyarbakır for a massive rally on the day of March 8, which attracted women from around the region.

Another important rally took place at Suruç, just across the border from Kobanê. Since the attacks on Kobanê began, thousands of citizens have gathered to stand vigil over the YPG/YPJ's resistance in the villages around Suruç. Thousands of women packed tiny Mehser Village for a March 8 rally where PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's March 8 greeting was read to the crowd.

In Istanbul, the 13^th Feminist Night March took the streets of the downtown Taksim district for hours. Thousands of women flooded the city to take back the night and decry the AKP's sexist politics and to celebrate the spirit of women's rebellion from Rojava to Istanbul.

208 of the March 8 events were in Turkey (including Northern Kurdistan). There, celebrations started on February 27, with notable celebrations in seven locations and on February 28 in six. The first week of March saw celebrations on the first in 15 cities and towns, on the second in 13, on the third in 20, on the fourth in 25 and on the fifth in 17.

The weekend was packed with events, with Friday March 6 seeing 32 celebrations, Saturday March 7 seeing 28 and Sunday March 8, the day of the holiday, seeing 45 celebrations. The largest mass rallies were held in Istanbul, Diyarbakır, Van, Iğdır, Şırnak, Suruç, Nusaybin, Mardin, Cizre and Mersin.

(şg-dk/fk/cm)