JINHA

ANKARA – Six women co-mayors of Kurdish towns and cities imprisoned in Turkey have issued a statement calling for the world to speak out against the massacres and blockades in Kurdistan.

As Turkish government began blockades and attacks on towns and cities in Kurdistan, it simultaneously executed a political cleansing operation. The women co-mayors who have been arrested, jailed and removed from their posts in Kurdistan have issued a statement from jail, calling for all to raise their voices against the inhumane attacks on Kurdistan.

Sevil Rojbin Çetin (co-mayor of Edremit); Dilek Hatipoğlu (Hakkari); Diba Keskin (Erciş); Fatma Şık Barut (Sur); Yüksel Bodakçı (Silvan); and Şaziye Önder (Iğdır) have issued a joint statement from the prison in Ankara where they are being held. The women spoke out against the massacres perpetrated in the towns and districts of Cizre, Sur and Nusaybin.

“If these unconscionable days are a cry that descends on us with all its caustic force, then with this cry we call on all consciences,” said the women. “How many more children, how many more youth, how many more women are killed every day, we wonder?”

The co-mayors referred to a number of deaths of women and children in the blockaded cities, including the death of three-year-old baby Miray, shot and killed in Cizre; and the death of mother of seven Taybet İnan, whose body could not be retrieved after she was shot and killed in Silopi. They called the deaths indescribable.

“For example, how shall we tell of the mothers of babies like Miray, burning with their pain like embers? And the pain of not being able to reach the lifeless body of Mother Taybet, not 100 meters from her family!”

The women stressed that each of these incidents was a reality that someone was forced to go through.

“Today we witness destruction and massacre that do not even accord with the laws of war,” said the women. “In these days when the content of words disappears, we believe that it is the time to form a spirit of togetherness, for all to do whatever they can, so that we witness no more of this; so that tomorrow we do not say ‘we came too late.’

“We are inviting you to bring together your words with your actions, to raise your voice against the deaths and the destruction of human, so that on that day you can give an honorable answer to the question: ‘what did you do?’”

(dc/cm)