JINHA

AMED/İZMİR - In the cities of Diyarbakır and İzmir, Turkey, local branches of the Women's Initiative for Peace have developed creative forms of mobilizing against war.

The Amed Women's Initiative for Peace was recently founded in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakır (Amed in Kurdish). The women's most recent action took place at the monument to the victims of the Roboski bombing, where the women formed a "circle of peace."

"Let the F-16s land and the doves of peace take off," read one of the signs at the protest, where women formed a ring around the monument and chanted slogans for peace in both the Kurmanji and Zazaki (Kirmancki) dialects of Kurdish, as well as in Turkish.

"We mothers didn't bring our children into the world so they would die," said Peace Mother Kudrey Eryılmaz, calling on peace to raise their voices against war. "We're addressing the AKP state: you may enjoy the war you're making, but we're in pain. We will continue struggling for peace as we always have. We want to ask the mothers of [Turkish] soldiers to support our struggle as well, because in this war it's our sons, the sons of the poor, who are dying."

Meanwhile, in the city of İzmir in western Turkey, the city's branch of Women's Initiative for Peace set up a stand in a street market in the Karşıyaka district with a "peace diary." The women are collecting statements supporting peace at the stand. The women have also started a sticker campaign, stickering the message "women are coming together for peace" in the streets of the city.

Women's Initiative for Peace representative Şenay Tavus spoke briefly at the stand, saying that because women felt the deprivation and violence brought by war most intensively, women have begun insisting on peace in provinces across Turkey.

(ny-sg-ck/fk/cm)