Zeynep Kınacı was 24 years old when she blew herself up near Turkish soldiers who were singing the Turkish national anthem, killing around ten soldiers while wounding over thirty, on 30 June 1996 in the center of Dersim. With her action, the trained nurse, whose nom de guerre was "Zîlan", set a beacon for the Kurdish freedom movement, especially the women's movement. Kurds all around the world pay tribute to Zîlan on the 27th anniversary of her martyrdom. 

Jiyan Rêdur, a guerrilla fighter in the ranks of YJA Star (Free Women's Troops) spoke to ANF on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the martyrdom of Zîlan.

Jiyan Rêdur commemorated all the martyrs of the revolution in the person of Martyr Zîlan, and said: "Heval Zîlan protected the freedom struggle. We also want to protect the values represented by heval Zîlan in the mountains of freedom and take the same stance. Heval Zilan, who remained in the party for only one year, was marked by a strong sense of self-sacrifice. She opened a way for us. The values she represented in the party have been brought forward to this day. It is astonishing to become such a fighter in such a short time. With her loyalty to the party, her organized personality and action, she left an indelible mark."

Guerrilla Rêdur continued: "Heval Zîlan's spirit of resistance is always with us. We have thousands of comrades who are symbols of our movement, such as Andok, Êrîş, Zinar, Doğan, Eylem and Tîrêj, who walked on the same path opened by heval Zîlan. Today, we are walking on the path of our martyrs in order to realize their unfinished dreams. The enemy is trying to defeat us, but he will not succeed. The will of freedom created by the martyrs has spread everywhere today. As long as Rêber Apo's [Abdullah Öcalan] guerrillas exist, the enemy will not be able to attack our people, our lands, women and youth so easily.

Thanks to Heval Zîlan, Sema, Sara and Bêrîtan, we are fighting for freedom today. It is leader Öcalan and our martyred comrades who bind us to this life. Thanks to this, the women's movement reached its current level. The resistance that grew in the mountains of freedom with the slogan 'Jin Jiyan Azadî' has spread to the cities of Kurdistan today and has affected the whole world. Thousands of YJA Star and PAJK militant women go fearlessly, without hesitation, courageously against the enemy and take revenge for thousands of years of submission."

Guerrilla Rêdur added: "As YJA Star guerrillas, we want to further enlarge this struggle, which was created at great cost. Every time we escalate the struggle, we become the pin of Zîlan's bomb, and we become the fire in Sema's body. The struggle of Heval Zîlan and the line created by leader Öcalan ensured the spread of the 'Jin Jiyan Azadî' slogan to the world and our survival. We are the guerrillas of heval Zîlan. We will definitely win."