Vi har mottatt følgende brev fa TJA, Den frie kvinnebevegelsen, om at flere av deres aktivister og deres talsperson Ayşe Gökkan har blitt arrestert. I oppkjøringa til 8. mars ser vi igjen hvor redd det tyrkiske regimet er for den kurdiske kvinnebevegelsen.

In Turkey the ruling fascist AKP-MHP coalition, acting in full cooperation with the broader forces of patriarchy has launched an intensive attack on the TJA and on women’s struggle in general. The most recent of these attacks was the arrest of Ayşe Gökkan, the spokesperson of the TJA. Also imprisoned earlier were Leyla Güven, Ayla Akat Ata, Zeynep Ölbeci, Meryem Adıbelli, Pervin Oduncu and Emine Ayna.  

TJA spokesperson Ayşe Gökkan was arrested pending trial on charges of “leading a terrorist organization” and “membership in a terrorist organization” on January 27. In fact, she was re-arrested in the same case after having been released after 8 months in prison. The court ruled for her immediate imprisonment claiming she constitutes a threat to public safety on grounds of: 5 secret witness statements, her work with Kurdish parties and statements about Kurdish national unity, her statements during Leyla Güven’s 200-days hunger strike, her statement demanding that Mr Öcalan’s family be allowed to visit him after news of a fire in the İmralı Island, participation in Newroz rally in 2020, her work to build a Kurdish alliance, her participation in press statements made by Rosa Women’s Association against violence against women, her notes on women related work and possession of various issues of the Jineology magazine.  In her testimony in court Ayşe said: “You are asking me why I participate in women’s struggle? When I went to primary school the teacher beat me on my nails with a baton because I spoke in Kurdish.  I have never forgotten that pain and I never will. I have been under torture for being a Kurd and for being a woman ever since my first day in school. I am fighting against this. I am resisting. No one can ever incriminate me for this. You also claim that we act under instructions from men. No men can dare give us instructions.”

Ayşe Gökkan has engaged in women’s work throughout her 35 years in political struggle. She was the mayor of Nusaybin in 2009-2014. No women were murdered in Nusaybin during her 5 years term. She was a member of the diplomacy commission of the KJA for many years until it was banned with a decree with power of law during the state of emergency in 2016. She is now the spokesperson of TJA. Her’s has been a life devoted to women’s organized struggle. In what we can aptly call judiciary harassment, she has been arrested 83 times. She appeared before court 600 times in 215 different cases.

Leyla Güven, TJA activist and Democratic Society Congress Co-Chair, has been sentenced to 22 years and 6 months in prison on charges of “membership in terrorist organization” and “propaganda”. Outstanding among the grounds of court’s judgement was the statement that she incited hatred and enmity in one sector of the population toward another in her speeches by her references to matriarchal society and her statements about building a woman-centric society. The court took the extraordinary step of ruling for her immediate imprisonment pending the appeal processes and hastily sent her to prison.

Our activists Ayla Akat Ata, Zeynep Ölbeci, Meryem Adıbelli, Pervin Oduncu and Emine Ayna were taken under police custody and subsequently arrested in relation to the Kobane case file concocted after 6 years. Along with 108 politicians, they are accused of leading and participating in the 6-8 October 2014 protests against the heavy IS attack on the city of Kobane. Their arrest is a continuation of the government’s policies which target democratic politics and put women on the target.

The AKP-MHP government is putting its fascist system of rule into practice on the basis of sexist ideology through a new concept of patriarchal attack. The government drawing on misogyny as the source of its political existence has launched a relentless attack on women’s forces of struggle in order to entirely liquidate women’s rights struggle and to abolish women’s rights. It is trying to destroy women’s will by means of attacks on women’s representation in the field of democratic politics; through its policies of liquidating the women-centric system by appropriating all our rightful and legal gains in the field of local governments; and, through the method of intensive operations and arrests targeting women’s movement. The government is incriminating the Istanbul Convention and trying to withdraw from it. This all results in a big increase in women murdered, attacks on way of life, rape and sexual abuse. This is a practice and strategy of special warfare. The society is being swept into a new process of colonialization and occupation by carrying into effect women’s slavehood. To put it in precise words, femicide is being carried out under state supervision and planning. 

The ruling coalition is giving us the message: “You either give up your struggle or go to prison”.  TJA is a women’s movement that wages a struggle to build a democratic society. TJA is a women’s movement where women who aim and struggle to replace patriarchy with a women-centric system are organized. That is why the ruling AKP-MHP coalition is afraid of women. We will continue to defy male state violence against women and to wage women’s liberation struggle. TJA cannot and will not be intimidated.

We hereby declare once more: It is not women’s struggle for freedom but those that murder women, harassers, rapists, abusers that should stand trial. Those who protect and whitewash them should stand trial. Our organized women’s struggle will prevail, not misogynist policies.

We call on feminist and women’s movements throughout the world to join hands with us in this struggle against the forces of patriarchy and fascism.

TJA (Free Women’s Movement)