On the third anniversary of her murder, Kurdish journalist and Jineolojî researcher Nagihan Akarsel was commemorated at her grave in Konya. Activists and companions paid tribute to her work for a free and conscious society.
Three years after the murder of Kurdish author, journalist, and Jineolojî researcher Nagihan Akarsel, she was commemorated in her home village of Xelîkan (also known as Xalîka Jêr, tr. Gölyazı) in the central Anatolian province of Konya. Akarsel was shot dead on October 4, 2022, in Sulaymaniyah in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) with eleven shots fired from the weapon of a hitman working for the Turkish intelligence service.
Representatives of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), the Free Women's Movement (TJA), and the Peoples' Democratic Congress (HDK) were among those who attended the visit to Nagihan Akarsel's grave. The ceremony began with a minute's silence, accompanied by chants of “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (Woman, Life, Freedom).
“We woke up with her”
Zeynep Yalçın, member of the DEM Party Women's Coordination in Central Anatolia, paid tribute to Akarsel's work with poignant words: “They wanted to make sure she died because her thoughts, her struggle, and her life were dangerous to those who fear change. The murder not only left behind pain, but also triggered a wake-up call. Since then, we have been reading her texts, her analyses, and we are continuing her struggle.”
“She was the epitome of resistance”
DEM Party MP Gülderen Varlı described Akarsel as a symbolic figure of the Kurdish women's movement. “She was resistance itself—with her voice, her analysis, her language,” said Varlı. “Akarsel's murder was not an isolated incident, but part of a historical continuum of patriarchal violence: Time and again, women who stood for freedom were silenced by targeted attacks. But Nagihan achieved the opposite with her work.”
“None of her traces will be forgotten”
In her speech, Varlı emphasized that “Akarsel not only wrote political analyses, but also recorded the buried history of women. Her vision was a free Kurdistan and a free Turkey. She left us a great legacy; her thoughts, her attitude, her language. And we promise her: none of these traces will be lost. Neither her pen, nor her words, nor her consciousness.”
Akarsel’s gravestone bears a quote from one of her texts: “Say a word that will make me one of us, so that life is shared and freedom belongs to all.” According to Varlı, this sentence keeps Nagihan Akarsel's legacy alive as a mission to continue her work.
