IWA Condemns the EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLING of Three Kurdish Women Politicians by Turkish Security Forces

Last Monday, January 4, 2016, three Kurdish women politicians were killed in Kurdistan in Southeast Turkey as the Turkish state continues its all-out onslaught against the Kurdish people. Party of Democratic Regions (DBP) PM Seve Demir, Free Women’s Congress (KJA) member Fatma Uyar and Silopi People’s Council Co-Chair Pakize Nayır Kurdish were killed in the curfew-hit town of Silopi as the authorities press an offensive against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and inflict sanctions such as the curfew among the Kurdish masses in the district.

The international Women’s Alliance (IWA) denounces this second massacre of women politicians and the on-going war on the Kurdish people by Turkish authorities.

IWA recently honoured Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, and Leyla Söylemez, three women murdered in Paris in 2013 with its Women of Valor Award “for promoting women’s emancipation, freedom and peace” during its Second International Assembly in Manila in November 2015 in the presence of representatives of CENI, the Kurdish Women’s Office for Peace, an IWA- member-organization.

It will be exactly three years tomorrow that these women were assassinated in French capital city of Paris. They were found dead at the Ceni office in Paris in the morning of January 9, 2013.

In response to this second massacre, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said three of its women campaigners and another as-yet-unidentified man had been shot and badly wounded in Silopi town in Sirnak province late on Monday. The man has not been identified because his face was so badly disfigured, it said. All four later died. It seems they were shot at because they violated the curfew.

The HDP also blames the Turkish authorities of failing to evacuate them despite pleas. They said the HDP asked the authorities to evacuate them (from Silopi) but got no response. According to reports quoting Leyla Birlik, the party’s MP for Sirnak province, Silopi has been under curfew since December 14 as the authorities wage a major military operation to crush the PKK in the Kurdish region in the country’s southeast. She said these three women and the man called to report they were wounded and losing blood, and requested to be taken out of Silopi.

“The targeting of three women in the vanguard of the resistance was not a coincidence. They targeted the freedom struggle of all women,” HDP’s co-leader Figen Yuksekdag said in a party statement. Pro-Kurdish media insisted they were civilians and not combatants.

 “We are one with our Kurdish sisters and with all women fighting for the liberation of their peoples from imperialism”, said IWA Secretary-General Emily Cahilog.

End imperialist wars of aggression and intervention!

Stop violence against women!

Long live international solidarity!