The Free Women's Movement (TJA) hold a press conference in Bağlar, Amed to mark 21 February International Mother Language Day. The women gathered in front of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) building, and then read the statement in the Cuma Market. HDP Amed MPs Remziye Tosun and Semra Güzel, HDP executives and TJA activists joined the press conference. 

TJA activist Beritan Önen said that societies who are forced away from their mother tongue are forced away from their freedom. Emphasizing that every society has sacred values ​​and language is the leading one, Önen said: “A society can only protect its existence by protecting its own language. Kurds have faced colonialism in their territory. So many dirty tricks were played against the Kurdish language”. 

Önen added: “The Kurds faced all kind of assimilation policies and attacks. Let’s counter these attacks, let's fight for our mother tongue together. Let's free our language.”

Önen continued: “Kurdish should be the language of education. This is the most legal right of the Kurds. The boundaries of language are the boundaries of the world. Language cannot be liberated until those boundaries are removed. We will always be defeated until the mother tongue is liberated. We are calling on people to think, write and read in Kurdish. Let's protect our language.”

TJA activist Ayşan Kanuş Zengin spoke about the importance of the mother tongue in her speech.

After the press conference, the women distributed price tags with names of fruits and vegetables in Kurmanci and Kirmanckî to market stands. The women said that the products sold in the market should be called with their Kurdish names.