WUNRN
TURKEY - WOMEN MARCHING FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY + ISTANBUL FEMINIST
COLLECTIVE STATEMENT
Women marching in Istanbul organized
by Istanbul Feminist Collective.
http://cities.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/16783/we-the-women-are-in-taksim-in-istanbul-on-the-8th-
ISTANBUL FEMINIST
COLLECTIVE STATEMENT
Mar 07 2014 -
We
are, as the women who live in Turkey, raising our voices on the streets for
eleven years, calling out against patriarchy, against men's violence, sexism,
heterosexism, capitalism, militarism, and war, at the night marches of 8th of
March.
Since the last 8th of March, it has been a year of increasing violence against
women.
Every day, we reading about another femicide in the news. Every day three women
are killed in Turkey. The murderers and the rapists receive no punishment. The
state is not trying to stop the violence against women, but is trying to stop
divorces.
The AKP (Justice and Development Party), which is the government, the
legislative, and the juridical power at the same time, has taken our right of
abortion. We are sent away from the doors of the public hospitals. It limited
our ability to reach the contraceptive methods. The government doesn't hesitate
to step forward in order to control women's bodies. They are preparing laws
that are going to condemn us to a flexible and insecure work life. Women's
shelters and information centers in Turkey are only symbolic in number and are
insufficient. Removing the Ministry of Women, the government formed the
Ministry of Family and Social Policy. This new Ministry turns womens’s shelters
and information centers into places that protect the family and force women to
be obliged to the family.
We, as the women
who were on the streets in the Gezi Resistance, challenged the sexist
policies of the state. We were directly confronted by the violence and sexual
harassment of the police while resisting.
This was not the first time, though. Women faced police violence on the 8th of
March celebrations of 2005 in Beyazıt. The Turkish state has been condemned by
the European Court of Human Rights because of that police violence in 2005.
Taksim—where we as women in Istanbul go on resisting and existing in spite of
the police violence and all the obstacles, repeating that “we are not leaving
these streets and nights,"—is now under police blockade. On these streets,
where we have been calling out to the world for women’s freedom for eleven
years, we are now faced with the threat of the police violence, harrasment, and
tear gas for the upcoming 8th of March.
The oppression is
increasing, but we don't give up resisting and revolting against patriarchy! As
we have been for the last eleven years, we are going to be in Taksim on the 8th
of March for our night march.
The AKP government, which is attacking all aspects of our lives, is also trying
to take the streets that we walk on. But despite all of the prohibitions, we
are meeting in Taksim and lifting our voice.
We are calling on women from all around the world, to call out for the freedom
of women, to call out against the possible police violence and for solidarity,
even though they cannot be with us in Taksim. We are going to pass the police
barricades in Taksim together.
Let the father come. Let the husband come. Let the police come. Let the
nightstick come!
Deliberately to revolt! Deliberately to revolt! Deliberately freedom!
Istanbul Feminist Collective