Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday in Iraqi Kurdistan to pay tribute to assassinated scholar and feminist Nagihan Akarsel whose body is being carried to Turkey for burial.
People coming from all parts of Kurdistan, including representatives of political parties and civil society organisations, joined the funeral procession in Sulaymaniyah to say farewell to Akarsel, who was shot 11 times on Tuesday in front of her house.
Akarsel, a fierce fighter of women’s rights, was one of the co-founders of the Jineology Research Centre in southern Kurdistan.
Necîbe Qeredaxî from the centre, gave a speech on Saturday to honour her colleague: “Today they killed Nagihan and tomorrow they will kill our sister, mother and all of us, and we must not remain silent.”
Perwa Elî, a member of Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) women’s commission, said during the ceremony that Akarsel had been a tireless fighter for women’s rights in the region.
“She was in Sulaymaniyah, but her activities crossed all borders, and she dedicated all of her life for Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom),” Elî added.
Akarsel was the fifth outspoken Kurdish critic of the Turkish government who was attacked in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region since last year. The KNK called on the Kurdistan Regional Government to hold the perpetrators of the brutal act accountable and not to compromise on this case with Turkey.
Hüseyin Kaçmaz, a lawmaker of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), also called on the autonomous government to immediately arrest the murderers and reveal their identities to the public.
“Whenever we pay a visit to the south of Kurdistan, it is for the funeral of one of our friends, this must end,” Kaçmaz said.
Akarsel’s body was then sent to Erbil (Hewler) and will later be taken to Turkey to be buried in her hometown Konya in central Anatolia.
