Turkish security forces confronting Free Women’s Movement (TJA) organisers at the historic Ten-Eyed Bridge in the Sur district of Diyarbakır (Amed) on Saturday declared the Kurdish slogan “Jin jiyan azadî” (Woman, Life, Freedom) illegal. Officers informed the women that their traditional rallying cry against gender violence now constituted “propaganda for an illegal organisation”.
Although no formal documentation has been presented or notice posted on government websites, the police attempted to prevent women from chanting the slogan, claiming that it was the “terminology of an illegal organisation”. Women at the demonstration responded by continuing to chant “Jin jiyan azadî” and “Biji berxwedana jina” (Long live women’s resistance) while playing traditional drums.
“This slogan echoes through streets and parliaments worldwide, yet today the Governor of Diyarbakır is attempting to silence it,” declared Adalet Kaya, Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party MP for Diyarbakır. “We greet the struggle of women in Afghanistan fighting for their right to education, we say ‘Zan zendegi azadi’ [Dari for Jin jiyan azadî]. We will not fear these repressive policies, and we will not obey them.”
“The Governor of Diyarbakır has no grasp on reality,” said the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Women’s Assembly. “This slogan echoes in every corner of the women’s struggle worldwide. From Eastern Kurdistan to India, from Rojava to the streets of Europe – no one has the authority to silence this cry uniting women in common rebellion.”
In the meantime, thousands marched from Canebière to the Palais-de-Justice in Marseille, France, with the Arin Mirkan Kurdish Women’s Association joined by French women’s organisations, demanding an end to impunity for violence against women and calling for justice for Kurdish women facing state repression.
During a similar demonstration in Reims, France, the seventeen leading organisations carried banners declaring “Your war, our blood”, chanting “Jin jiyan azadî”. In Lausanne, human rights lawyer Gülseren Yoleri presented stark statistics on femicide: “In Turkey, 582 women were killed in 2023, and 357 in the first ten months of 2024. Of these, 198 were killed with firearms and 77 with bladed weapons.”
In Düsseldorf, hundreds of Kurdish women were joined by women of various nationalities, their chants of “Jin jiyan azadî” filling the streets from the central station to the courthouse. The Kurdish organisation Women Students in Berlin also organised actions under the banner “No to executions! Yes to free life!”
