“In order for us to live free, equal, fair, in mutual trust and ecological balance, the demand for accountability is as indispensable as an uninterrupted resistance of women like free society against sexist, capitalist exploitation,” we write in the appeal of our campaign “100 reasons to condemn the dictator”.
In this sense, we, the Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe (Tevgera Jinên Kurd li Ewropayê, TJK-E), now announce the start of this campaign on November 25, 2020.
This is the beginning of a new phase in which we will fight creatively and resolutely for the recognition of feminicide as a crime against humanity and the sentencing of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in front of the Criminal Court.
In various places around the world, women experience the direct impact of right-wing totalitarian, fascist, conservative, sexist governments and heads of state. Feminicides are linked to the wars in the world. They are linked to exploitative basic structures, such as patriarchy, which are also the basis for wars. Numerous massacres have been committed against women in the last decade, especially in Syria, Şengal and Rojava. The Turkish government as supporter and accomplice as well as other indirect supporters have been guilty of the biggest crimes against humanity against women in the 21st century. The fascism of the AKP-MHP regime in Turkey shows itself more and more open and becomes a permanent threat to women and a freedom oriented society. Within this framework and in general, it is nothing new that there is often a special war policy against women. The number of women in Turkey alone who have been banned from the political sphere, public life and profession because of offences of opinion and are now held hostage in prisons is around 10,000! It is not enough to criticize these crimes against women and to protest in the streets; it is time to evaluate these crimes against women on an international level and to call to account the defenders of this fascist regime that systematically commits massacres against women.
With this campaign, therefore, we will take another energetic step towards naming Erdoğan as one of the main perpetrators of feminicides and draw the consequences. We demand accountability for the crimes against women and society! We also demand that the murders of women be defined as feminicide and recognized as crimes against humanity!
In the first phase of this campaign we will collect 100.000 signatures until March 8th, share with you stories of murdered women, take action, take legal steps and create alliances against feminicide and fascism. We will be the voice of the murdered women against the dictator who commits massacres every day.
Every signature, every action carried out in the framework of our campaign will bring the dictator one step closer to his condemnation and will limit the dictator(s) sphere of action. As TJK-E we welcome November 25, 2020 under the motto “High time for the free society to defend itself against the feminicide!
Yes, we as women defend the free society and the free woman against the massacre of women. Let us strengthen our forces, let us make our voices loud! This is a good day to unite in the struggle against fascism, the murder of women, dictatorships, occupation and massacres! Jin, Jîyan, Azadî!
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It’s clear from recent history that nothing has brought more atastrophe on humanity than dictatorial regimes. From the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and settler colonial genocides against indigenous peoples in the Americas, to the many massacres in places like the Middle East, including Kurdistan, humanity has had to bear all sorts of genocides, especially in the last two centuries.
According to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
The widely accepted definition of dictatorship is a ruler’s monopolization/concentration of power to uphold themselves as the supreme leader. This shows plainly that Erdoğan is a dictator and he must be prosecuted for his crimes. The dictatorial president of Turkey systematically targets Kurdish women with hischauvanist, fascist and racist mentality. In 18 years of AKP rule, Erdoğan has presided over a regime of massacre, murder and rape against women.
On October 29, 2009, 12 year-old Ceylan was killed by a Turkish army howitzer, while tending sheep. On January 9th, 2013, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, and Leyla Şaylemez were assassinated in Paris by the Turkish intelligence. Kader Ortakaya was shot in the head in November 2014, while trying to cross into Kobane during the ISIS seige. Young activist Dilek Doğan was assassinated in her house by the police on October 18th, 2015. In December 2015, the dead body of Taybet Inan, a civilian killed by the Turkish armed forces, was left to rot in the streets during the curfew in Silopi. On January 4th, Kurdish women’s activists Seve Demir, Pakize Nayır, and Fatma Uyar were massacred by army fire under army siege in Silopi. On October 12, 2019, Kurdish women’s activist and politician Hevrin Xelef was murdered by Turkish-backed jihadist gangs in the Turkish state’s ‘Peace Spring’ Operation in Serekaniye (Ras al-Ain) in Northern Syria. In June 2020, three Kurdish women activists of the women’s movement umbrella Kongra Star were murdered in a Turkish drone strike on a house in Helince village of Kobane, Northern Syria. There are many more examples. Violence against women has risen by more than one thousand percent in Turkey. Rape is increasingly normalized. Women are systematically excluded from political spheres (including by imprisonment). All this in addition to the criminalization of academic, artistic and professional work.
Our memory and anger are alive because we face another massacre every day. We have the power to hold the perpetrators accountable. We have sufficient reasons and evidence. We also have enough consciousness and understanding to know that these are all war crimes. As the Kurdish women’s movement, we have been fighting back with campaigns, actions and resistance against feminicide in our country. With our campaign “100 reasons to prosecute the dictator”, we will stand up against the main perpetrator of these crimes, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Without a doubt, in his 18 years in power, Erdoğan has not committed 100, but hundreds of crimes. However, as women, our conscience cannot find peace without the confrontation of these heinous crimes we we have decided to focus on.
We will not say ‘The number of incidents and deaths is impossible to count’. As women, we do not only condemn these crimes as statistics. We also condem them with our being, conscience, hearts and minds. We do not want Erdoğan to be like the otherswho were called ‘state leaders’, and only named as ‘dictators’ after their war crimes had been exposed or they had died. We want him to be prosecuted now.
Our list of Erdoğan’s crimes is long enough and we do not want it to get even bigger.
As the Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe (TJKE) we want to collect 100.000 signatures for 100 reasons to oppose the dictator and his mercenaries in their use of law, military and the police for violence and injustice. In the first phase of our campaign, in the 104 days between 25 November 2020 and 8 March 2021, we will give another “reason” every day, by sharing the stories of women who were murdered by the state. The dictator manages to commit new massacres every day.
Against this we will tell you about the women who have been murdered. We want them to permanently enter the pages of history and the memory of humanity.
The signatures that we will collect will constitute the first step of our quest to prosecute the dictator. In the second phase, we will take our signatures, the incidents we have recorded, and all the evidence we have collected to the UN and other relevant institutions. Through actions and legal and social campaigns we will demand the beginning of the process of recognizing feminicide as a crime like genocide. The UN’s failure to do what is necessary encourages dictators like Erdoğan, who represent the male dominated mentality institutionalised.
Each signature we collect will take us one step closer to prosecuting the dictator, while each voice we raise in action will narrow the space available to dictators. You can add power to our power, your voice to our voice to remove the dictator from our life by signing up to this campaign at.
100.000 signatures for 100 reasons
Once upon a time, the AKP promised to meaningfully democratize Turkey, to implement justice, to solve domestic issues such as the Kurdish question by political means; to build a pluralistic, democratic parliamentary system, with zero tolerance for torture, and zero problems with neighbouring countries. For years, these promises raised expectations for the urgent demands for change made by society. Among the promises were the struggle against sexism and for gender equality. In the 18 years of AKP rule, the Turkish state has not only not fulfilled these promises; it has taken unprecedented steps backwards.
Together with its coalition partner, the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the government has established fascist/dictatorial one-man rule, seizing control over all bodies of the state, removing freedom of thought and expression, turning the justice system into the greatest vehicle for injustice,and dismantling the division of powers.
The Erdoğan government recklessly uses all resources of the state against those who oppose its rule. It tries to eliminate all opposition through killing, imprisonment, torture, forced displacement and expropriation. People are further silenced through threats of being sacked, intimidation, and blackmail.
Domestically, the Erdoğan government has turned the country into an open prison, a regime of fear with dictatorial methods. At the same time, the state has resorted to more aggression and blackmail in its foreign policy than ever before. Although the government had promised ‘zero problems with neighbours’, the country now has conflict with nearly everyone in the region, and beyond. In its quest for regional hegemony based on neo-Ottoman dreams, the AKP wages war in Syria, Iraq, and Libya.
It frequently uses ISIS and similar groups as mercenaries for occupation. It regularly uses blackmail as part of its foreign policy in order to get its way (the so-called refugee deal with the EU is a case in point). At this point,Turkey under the AKP presents a threat and danger to the entire region. These developments are clear to the extent to which they are covered in the press. However there is another dangerous war led by the AKP that is widely unreported in the media and absent from global discussion: a feminicidal war on women!
With the increasingly aggressive nature of the domestic and foreign policies of the Erdoðan government, feminicidal policies increased as well. With its feminicidal policies, the AKP is also enacting a ‘societicidal’ policy. Fascism, the most maledominated system, can only perpetuate itself by deepening the colonized position of women. Turkey is the country with the most female political prisoners.
During the AKP government, violence against women has increased by 1400%. The explosion of feminicides and violence against women is not a coincidence, nor is it disconnected from state policies. In regions under Turkish state occupation, women are kidnapped, raped, sold, and massacred. There is an assault on women’s power and agency. Women are objectified and pushed into conservative gender roles. Women constantly face suffocation by the state and the patriarchal society it reproduces. Like everywhere else in the world, women are an important force of resistance in Turkey.
The Kurdish Women’s Movement is at the forefront of a serious women’s awakening. It is not a coincidence that Erdoðan’s feminicidal policies increase as this awakening grows. With feminicide, the state is trying to eliminate opposition and thereby any prospective force of change. The aim is to hold society hostage.
The fact that feminicide is still not recognized as a crime against humanity means that states and dictators are not afraid of being held accountable. As long as feminicide is not treated as a crime against humanity, it will not be possible to truly challenge attacks on society such as genocide.
With this campaign, we want to expose and draw attention to the feminicidal policies of the AKP. We want to seek justice and demand prosecution for Erdogan.
We want to be a voice for all women in the world who are subjected to violence, and draw attention to all state crimes against women.
We want to put an end to the violence against women committed in the Turkish Republic on a feminicidal scale, where one woman is killed by male violence every day.
With this campaign, we want feminicide to be internationally recognized as a crime against humanity.
Add your signature to our demands. No tolerance of feminicide.
Web: www.100-reasons.org E-Mail: signatures@100-reasons.org / info@100-reasons.org Facebook: onehundredreasons Twitter: @100Reasons_
