25 November: Paying tribute to the struggle of women in NE Syria

Kongra Star dedicates the actions on the occasion the International Day against Violence against Women which will take place between Nov 25thand Dec 10th, to their comrades Amara, Hevrîn and Dayê Aqîde.

November 25th is an international day for the elimination of violence against women. From Rojava, the women's umbrella organisation Kongreya Star calls on all the resisting women to pay tribute to the struggle of women in Northern and Eastern Syria on this day.

The call of Kongreya Star Coordination reads as follows:

“To all revolutionary and freedom-seeking women,

On the 25th of November 1960 the tyranny of the dictator Trujillo, a symbol of the systematized patriarchy, killed the Mirabal sisters. The dictatorship declared the Mirabal sisters an archenemy and killed them through a conspiracy. Their resistance and their murder increased the struggle against the fascist dictatorship. Six months after they were killed, the organized force of the people brought an end to the dictatorship. The Mirabal sisters continue to be one of the biggest sources of hope for the fight of all women in the world against patriarchal violence and its organized forms of fascism and dictatorship.

Today, our region has become a war zone of international hegemonic forces. We as women in the region face the most heavy, organized, brutal and intensive sides of the violence in this war zone. In North and East Syria, in the occupational and genocidal war that Turkey started on the 9th of October; from the use of prohibited chemical weapons, torture, organized attacks and rapes, forced displacements and murders, women and children faced and continue to face various kinds of attacks. One of the biggest ecological, political, social, economic, demographic and cultural tragedies of history is taking place right now in North-East Syria and Rojava. Actually, the violence we are facing is the fully equipped, organized and systematic violence of male hegemony, with the face of the dictatorship of Erdogan and his gangs. Violence is consistently used when attacking the women’s revolution of Rojava. The women fight back against these brutal attacks against Rojava and Northern Syria with their organized women’s power. The women who resist on every level are at the forefront of creating a democratic and free society.

On the 12th of October 2019, the co-president of the Syrian Future Party, Hevrîn Xalef, was murdered together with eight other people, and her dead body was mistreated. Hevrîn Xalef, who was a leading force in the political field of the women’s revolution, fought for the unity and a dignified peace of the peoples in the city of Raqqa, which ISIS intended to declare as their capital. Through Hevrîn Xalef, an attempt was being made to a create system of equal representation and co-presidency, a new way of life and politics with the leading role of women.

On the 14th of October, Dayê Aqîde as a member of the women’s assembly for justice, took the road to Serêkanî to defend her lands as a human shield. She lost her life in the civilian convoy that was attacked by the air forces of the Turkish state. Through her, at the same time the connection of women with their lands, their love for their lands, was attacked too.

Like in the past, the YPJ once again shows a heroic resistance against the fascism of the Turkish state and ISIS. The YPJ fighter Amara Renas was the successor of thousands of comrades who defeated ISIS. On the 21st of October, she was killed during her resistance against the ISIS gangs which now unite with the Erdogan-AKP fascism. The gangs also mistreated her dead body. The attack on her was an attack against the organized self-defense of women. Amara Renas, Hevrîn Xalef and Dayê Aqîde have become new symbols of the struggle against systematic patriarchal violence.

In this sense, as Kongra Star we dedicate the actions on the occasion the International Day against Violence against Women which will take place between Nov 25thand Dec 10th, to our comrades Amara, Hevrîn and Dayê Aqîde. We call women worldwide to commemorate these three courageous women, who continue the struggle of the Mirabal sisters, and to increase the resistance until the rule of Erdogan and all dictators is destroyed. We call all women’s organizations and feminist movements and all the resisting women, academics and artists that have struggled all over the world since the occupation of Rojava started, to fill the streets with the colours of those three revolutionaries this 25th of November. We greet all resisting and freedom-loving women with the revolutionary spirit of the Mirabal sisters and that of Hevrîn, Dayê and Amara.”