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The Sulaymaniyah-based Jineolojî Academy issued a statement condemning the killing of Nagihan Akarsel, a prominent scholar, activist, a leading figure in Kurdish women’s studies and a member of the academy, and called on Iraqi women and women everywhere to pressure authorities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) to shed light on the crime.
Akarsel was shot dead near her home in Sulaymaniyah on Tuesday morning, to the grief of Kurds around the world. The scholar and activist had made great contributions to the field of Jineolojî, a form of feminism developed within the Kurdish movement that translates to “women’s science”.
The full statement follows.
Our friend Nagihan Akarsel, Jineolojî Academy member and Jineolojî Journal Editorial Board member, was martyred as a result of an armed attack in Sulaymaniyah at 09:30 this morning.
With anger and rage, we condemn this assassination, which is one of the recent political murders carried out by fascist and hegemonic powers against all women in resistance around the world. We call on the Kurdistan Regional Government to find the perpetrators of this murder as soon as possible. This attack is a continuation of the brutal murders of Yasin Bulut, Mehmet Zeki Çelebi and Suhel Xorşid. If this murder case is not investigated, the collaboration of the Kurdistan Regional Government will face the rage of the rising wave of our women’s revolution.
Nagihan was active in the university youth movement, in the media, and in Jineolojî efforts. She spent a long time in the Kurdistan Women’s Freedom struggle, and resisted in prison for years for this cause. During the most difficult years of the Rojava women’s revolution, she built efforts to develop the women’s colours of the revolution and advanced revolutionary women’s enlightenment works through Jineolojî. She did so in all of Rojava, and especially in Afrin, with great courage and determination. She touched the souls and hearts of women in Shengal (Sinjar), who experienced the most severe forms of ISIS brutality, when she conducted field research to illuminate this sociology and history.
Our Jineolojî Academy Member Nagihan Akarsel was working on the Kurdish Women’s Library and Research Centre in Sulaymaniyah together with women from Southern Kurdistan. As she continued her work with the women of Southern Kurdistan, who experienced the most severe consequences of fascism and nation-state policies, Nagihan was brutally murdered by the Turkish occupying forces.
We will forever remember Nagihan Akarsel, who worked for decades to create the mental and intellectual power of the women’s revolution, whose slogan Jin-Jiyan-Azadî echoes around the world today. Against the same mentality of patriarchal fascism that brutally murdered Jîna Aminî, we are growing the women’s revolution in all of Kurdistan and beyond. We state that we will avenge our comrade Nagihan by advancing women’s enlightenment with Jineolojî, in spite of the darkness of fascism and hegemonic masculinity.
We call on all revolutionary, democratic, liberationist women, academics and intellectuals to condemn this political assassination. We call on Shahnaz Ibrahim and Kafia Suleiman, and all women from Southern Kurdistan to pressure the Kurdistan Regional Government to illuminate this political murder, and to condemn this attack by joining actions to unite with the women’s revolutionary wave in the making in Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) with the slogan Jin-Jiyan-Azadî.
