International Women's Day, 8th March 2010.
Kurdish people as a whole, appreciate the significance of International Women's Day probably more than most!
And Kurdish women understand and appreciate the significance of International Women's Day more than most!
For International Women's Day is celebrated by Kurdish women and Kurdish people as a day to reinvigorate their struggle for basic freedoms in a racist state that has denied their identity and discriminated against them since the inception of that state.
The Turkish national policy was to assimilate the Kurdish people and turn them into Turks.
They implemented this criminal policy of forced assimilation for over 80 years and for anybody who resisted there was only a few limited choices. Death, torture or prison! Or all three!!
Of course there was also exile which many millions choose.
Thousands upon thousands of Kurdish villages, town and hamlets were razed.
When I say, 'razed' it kind of clinicalises the operation for when a village or town was 'razed' it meant the village was visited by the Turkish army in their trucks and jeeps.
The soldiers would get out of their jeeps and break down the doors of the houses and pull, by their hair, the inhabitants into the village squares. The would beat them, urinate on them, rape them, shove truncheons up their anus's, cut off their fingers, ears, tongues. Sometimes the men would be required to take off all their clothes and have pieces of string tied around their penis's and led by other men around the village or sometimes they would get the men to ride on each others back when naked around the village.
At times, the soldiers would kill someone and then drag their body around the town or village. It has also been heard that the soldiers would cut off the ears of Kurds and collect them in little boxes. And heads.
You probably by now are getting the picture. Suppression, repression on a scale that was unbearable for most. That left deep psychological scars and mental wounds for many.
The memories of the soldiers spraying their flock of sheep with bullets and the blood and cries of the animals remaining in their ears for a lifetime. The bloated bodies of the cows and the burnt tractors. The smell of cordite and explosives that linger over the village for years. The pain.
The memories of watching your loved ones tortured and humiliated.
The pain!
But the inspiration of some who survive this and decide to resist.
Who join the resistance.
Who struggle for justice for this situation and for a better future for their own children.
And it is the Kurdish women who have survived and struggle.
This International Women's Day in London please join us in organising a demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy in London on Friday 12thMarch 2010 to remember the Kurdish Women's Struggle and bring attention of as many people as we possibly can, to the situation of Kurdish children, the children of Kurdish Women.
Those children that the Kurds who have suffered wanted a better life for.
Those children who still suffer the indignities of their parents and who resist.
To focus and explain the situation of Kurdish children by highlighting one child, Berivan, who as you read this sits, as do thousands of others, inDiyarbakir prison alone.
Let us shine a light into her cell and shine a light into the cells of thousands of Kurdish children who think they have been forgotten.
Join our demonstration:
On behalf of Berivan's Mother and all Mother's of Kurdish Children in Turkish Jails we are going to protest near to Mother's Day outside the Turkish Embassy in London.
We are going to hand in petitions and letters calling for the urgent immediate humanitarian release of Berivan and All Kurdish Children in Turkish Jails!!
Please join and help to build this demo if you are in London and please organise your own demo in your own country outside the Turkish Embassy to call for the release of Berivan and all Kurdish Children in Turkish Jails!
London Demo:
FREE BERIVAN AND ALL KURDISH CHILDREN IN TURKISH PRISONS!
Friday 12th March 2010
assemble 1430-1600
Outside Turkish Embassy
43 Belgrave Square
London SW1X 8PA (nearest tube Hyde Park Corner)
12th March. 1430-1600.
Please make home made placards and invite friends.
LONG LIVE
INTERNATIONAL
WOMEN'S
DAY! LONG LIVE THE
KURDISH WOMEN'S
STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM!
