Van-The Free Women’s Movement (Kurdish: Tevgera Jinên Azad-TJA) issued a press statement in front of the building of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) in the city of Van  with the participation of the members of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), the DEM Party Women’s Council, the STAR Women’s Association, the Human Rights Association (İnsan Hakları Derneği, İHD), the KESK Women’s Council, the Association for Solidarity with the Families of Prisoners and Convicts (TUHAYDER), the Association of Assistance and Solidarity with Families Who Lost Their Relatives in the Cradle of Civilizations (MEBYA-DER), the Aryen Culture and Art Workshop, the ARSİSA Language, Culture and Art Research Center Association and many women. The women held banners reading, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Women, Life, Freedom)”.

 ‘Women and girls were first targeted’

“The Taliban took control of Afghanistan three years ago,” said DEM Parti Rêya Armûşê (İpekyolu) Co-chair Şevin Polat. “Afghan women and girls have been impoverished by the patriarchal nation states, facing war, systematic violence, starvation and confinement. Since the 1990s, the Taliban have oppressed women and girls by imposing their interpretation of Sharia law. Women and girls were, of course, first targeted by the Taliban because they play a leading role in their society.”

‘Girls are deprived of their right to education’

Şevin Polat indicated that women and girls in Afghanistan were forced to wear burqas. “The Taliban have baned women and girls from schools, their rights to participate in politics and public space and restricted women and girls' access to healthcare.

“The best response to the regimes fed by the patriarchal nation states that ignore and usurp our most basic rights and aim to confine us in the cages is to be brave and resist.”

‘We will keep saying ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ together’

Şevin Polat called on all women to “strengthen our organized struggle. Our most fundamental responsibility towards the revolutionary women such as Clara Zetkin, Meena Keshwar Kamal, Sara, Arin Mirkan and Hevrin Khalaf is to strengthen our organized struggle and women’s struggle that has spread from Afghanistan to Kurdistan. As the TJA, we defend and support the 40-year-long freedom struggle of Afghan women. We will keep standing side by side and saying, ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ together despite the limits imposed by nation-state fascism.”