JINHA

ÊLIH – Hundreds of women marching to the besieged Botan region to protest the massacres and disrespect towards dead bodies have continued their march despite police blockades. Police have blockaded the rest stop in Siirt where the women are located.

The women’s organization KJA (Congress of Free Women) has called a march to the Botan region, where multiple cities are under 24-hour curfews and bloody police blockades. Police have refused to allow the people to bury those killed in the areas. The march’s slogan is, “Bodies aren’t being buried; humanity is dying. Lift the blockade of death.”

Hundreds of women set out from the city of Batman. Police were waiting for them at the outskirts of the city. Police forced the group to wait for hours, running identity checks and searches that turned up nothing. When the people objected to the hours of searches, police began to detain them. Among those detained were local activists from the KJA and the Party of Democratic Regions (DBP).

The women refused to abandon the march, and set out for their next step of Siirt, where they again encountered police opposition. As women stopped at a rest stop 18 kilometers from Siirt, police again stopped the women for a search. When police arrested a youth, the women protested, and police began assaulting the crowd. Ceylan Bağrıyanık, a leading KJA activist, was dragged along the ground by police. The rest stop is currently under police blockade.

“We won’t turn over our children or our dead bodies to anyone,” said Nuran Seçkin, among the marching women. She called for the Turkish state to release the jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan and to give the Kurdish people the rights they demanded.

“Our children went to the mountains [the guerrilla]. Our children were thrown in jail. And now they’re destroying our cities and killing our children,” said marcher Halime Avcı.

“If you burn ten cities, we will build ten cities,” said Halime. “If every one of our mothers has ten children and you kill two, we still have eight children, eight children who will fight back. Get your hands off Kurdish mothers; you can never annihilate them.”

(za/fk/cm)