Four women were interviewed by Medya News reporter Erem Kansoy for the second anniversary of the killing at the hands of the Iranian morality police of young Kurdish woman Jina (Mahsa) Amini, icon of the Jin Jiyan Azadî (Woman, Life, Freedom) uprising. Protests, sparked by the police brutality which resulted in her coma and death in September 2022, quickly became a movement, and the slogan, originating from the philosophy of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, has since been a rallying cry across the world.
Beatriu Cardona, a spokesperson for the Spanish trade union organisation Intersindical Valenciana condemned the “vile murder of Jina Amini for dressing as she wished”, and called on women the world over to “unite in the same shout, in the same yell, to fight for Women, Life and Freedom”. She praised Kurdish women for excelling in life and freedom even while “under siege” by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Marion Böker, a German women’s rights leader and human rights expert, and former president of the International Alliance of Women, focused on the resistance in Iran after Amini’s killing and the persecution of those involved in the protests, noting the arbitrary detentions, torture, and executions of detainees: “160 executions and in only [the last] 50 days.” She remarked on the women who demonstrated “without a headscarf, singing on the streets” and on the boycott of the Iranian election.
Böker also noted Turkey’s recent co-operation with Iran and mentioned the many Kurdish activists murdered in Iraqi Kurdistan and northeast Syria by the Turkish regime, and referred to Afghan women who are beginning to unite around the slogan Jin Jiyan Azadî whilst training and preparing for liberation.
She called for women to unite and support those under threat, saying that if places like the Kurdish regions are liberated, there will be “more peace in the world, allowing human rights and liberty for everyone and better wealthy countries and societies,” so that the world can focus on the priority at hand, which is to combat climate change, Böker added.
Margaret Owen, a widely acclaimed women’s rights activist and the founder of Widows for Peace Through Democracy pointed to the fact that Amini’s death at the hands of the Iranian regime caused an outpouring of protests all over the world, while the death of feminist academic Nagihan Akarsel, shot by a Turkish sniper “who has never, ever been prosecuted, although we know who he is”, and the more recent deaths of Kurdish women journalists, Gulîstan Tara and Hêro Bahadîn, “also murdered, killed by Turkish drones”, went broadly unremarked on the international front.
She expressed her bemusement with the UK, “such a great supporter and seller of arms to Turkey” for “refusing to even [make] any diplomatic protest to the Turkish authorities.”
Owen spoke highly of the writings of the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, noting that he said, “We can have no peace, no justice, no free democratic society unless centred is gender equality and women’s empowerment,” and praised Kurdish women in Turkey and “in southern and northern Kurdistan” as “wonderful, inspiring examples of what you can do when women rise up, show incredible bravery and go on protesting.”
Kenyan women’s activist Wavinya Kavivya, remembering Amini, referred to the rise of the Jin Jiyan Azadî movement, “and the most beautiful thing about this movement and how it has grown […] all the way from Öcalan’s ideology of liberating women.” She spoke of how the movement has spread abroad, referring to protests in India and Kenya where women have united around the slogan. She noted that “women’s organising and liberation is highly informed by Öcalan’s ideas that we cannot free society from so many injustices before we free the women.”
Kavivya summed up the ideas and thoughts of all the speakers, when she said, “Women are moving up front and saying, stop the femicide, stop killing us, stop the targeting of women because of the patriarchal systems within us.”
