Öykü Dilara Keskin-Habibe Eren / JINHA

ANKARA – Figen Yüksekdağ, co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) commented on the role of women in the popular resistance in Kurdistan against state attacks. “The symbol of the resistance, the dynamic pushing it forward, is women,” said Figen.

When local assemblies across Kurdistan declared self-government, Turkish state forces responded with 24-hour martial law and sieges on Kurdish cities. Women have been among the most noticeable figures in the resistance for self-government and against the attacks.. JINHA spoke with Figen Yüksekdağ of the HDP about women’s role in the resistance.

83 women have been killed in massacres and state attacks in Kurdistan and Turkey since July, when youth activists were tareted with a bombing in the town of Suruç.

“An important segment of the women killed were killed in the areas of resistance for self-government,” noted Figen. “The resistance seen in those self-government areas is in fact a resistance in defense of life. Rather than let life be taken prisoner by dictatorship and a coup government, there’s a people defending their life, their neighborhoods, their streets, their cities; that is the popular resistance and the basic reality here. And the ones who have been most devoted to the resistance are women.”

Figen noted that as a result, the fascist mindset has targeted women.

“When we look at the profiles of this women, we can see this quite clearly,” said Figen. She referred to Selamet Yeşilmen and Taybet İnan, two of the women killed in Turkish state assaults. “These were women killed in front of the oven outside their house, before the eyes of their children, trying to rescue the wounded, banging on pots and pans before the eyes of their neighborhood every night, working to stand up [for the resistance].”

She said that women’s bravery has been a major source of inspiration for those resisting by refusing to abandon their neighborhoods to Turkish state forces.

“For me, the most striking examples is the women whose houses were destroyed, who took the rubble from their house who make barricades,” said Figen. “This is a very humane thing: women who know their home, their house, and who turn the resistance into their home.”

Figen touched on the killing of three Kurdish women activists—Sêvê Demir, Pakize Nayir and Fatma Uyar—in the besieged town of Silopi. She noted that shortly before being killed, Pakize had made a statement stressing that women would not leave their homes in Silopi.

“It’s not at all an accident that these women were killed,” said Figen. “Women, the leading political force, were chosen and targeted for killing.

Figen said that the popular struggle for self-government was her party’s struggle, and they would work to make it a reality.

(gc/cm)