editor's pick

  • Happy International Women’s Day to all women fighting for freedom 

    Happy International Women’s Day to all women fighting for freedom

  •  “All women should defend the women's revolution like Ivana Hoffman" 

    Ivana Hoffmann, a member of the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), lost her life in Til Temir on March 7, 2015, the eve of International Women’s Day. “All women should defend the women’s revolution like Ivana Hoffman, who came to Rojava from Germany

  • Portrait of the day: Berfo Kırbayır 

    “I left the door open in case my child would come. Days, months, and years passed but my child didn’t come.”

  • Portrait of the day: Patricia Highsmith 

    Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short-story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers. She was born on January 19, 1921, in Texas. In 1927, her family moved to New York City. She was a resolute atheist. She fiercely criticized America's cultural structure and foreign policy in the 20th century. She wrote suspense, psychological thriller, crime fiction, and romance books.

  • Song of the day: Kan Lak Ma'aya by Umm Kulthum 

    Umm Kulthum (Fāṭima ʾIbrāhīm es-Sayyid el-Beltāǧī) was an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and film actress. She was born in Egypt on December 31, 1898. She died on February 3, 1975, at the age of 75. She is considered a national icon in Egypt and she is known as “The voice of Egypt”, “The Lady of Arabic Song”, and “Egypt's fourth pyramid”.

  • Portrait of the day: Street photographer Vivian Maier 

    Vivian Maier is considered one of the 20th century's greatest street photographers. Her work was discovered and recognized after her death. During her lifetime, her photographs were unknown and unpublished. In 2007, her photos were acquired by collectors and her photographs were first published on the Internet in July 2008.

  • Song of the day: To Gelasto Paidi by Mikis Theodorakis & Maria Farantouri 

    Maria Farantouri, a Greek singer and also a political and cultural activist, was born on November 28, 1947, in Athens. Fighting the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, she recorded protest songs. She was an elected member of the Greek Parliament from 1989 to 1993 representing the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). Let’s listen to “To Gelasto Paidi” song by Maria Farantouri and Mikis Theodorakis.

  • Movie of the day: Suffragette 

    Suffragette is a 2015 British historical drama film about women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. The film also sheds light on the conditions of the working class and the working women in England in the 1900s. In 1912, Maud Watts is a 24-year-old laundry worker. While delivering a package, she is caught up in a suffragette protest which includes her workmate, Violet Miller. After Maud, who is married and has children, starts to get to know the suffragettes, her life changes. After attending a protest, she is arrested, and jailed for a week. She faces stigma from neighbors and workmates. She tells her husband that she will stay away from the suffragettes but attends a secret rally to hear Pankhurst speak. She is detained again and taken home by police. Her husband throws her out. She struggles to see her son, continuing to work until her picture is published as a known suffragette.

  • Portrait of the day: Celia Sánchez, the heart of the Cuban Revolution 

    Celia Sánchez Manduley was the heart and soul of the Cuban Revolution. “Fears are now history, and now the people have a real sense of their own feelings and the revolution is above all else,” she wrote in her letter to her father.

  • Song of the day: Shakhataei by Sima Bina 

    Sima Bina is an Iranian traditional musician, composer, researcher, painter, and teacher. She was born on January 4, 1945. She started her career on Iranian radio at the age of nine, under the guidance of her father, Ahmad Bina, a master of Iranian classical music and poet. She studied the radif repertoire and avaz vocal technique with great masters such as Maaroufi and Zarrin Panjeh.

  • Movie of the day: The Cut 

    The Cut tells the story of the Manoogian family during the Armenian genocide. It tells how the suffering of the peoples, who were subjected to genocide, is the same.

  • Portrait of the day: bell hooks 

    Author, professor, feminist, and social activist bell hooks died on December 15, 2021, at her home in Berea, Kentucky, aged 69.

  • Today in history: Student Day in Iran 

    December 7, 16 Azar 1332 in the Iranian calendar, is the Student Day in Iran. It is the anniversary of the murder of three students of the University of Tehran on December 7, 1953, by Iranian police in the Pahlavi era. Every year, university students organize local demonstrations at many universities.

  • Portrait of the day: Şilan Kobanê 

    When women participated in the revolution in Rojava, they followed in one women’s footsteps; Meysa Baqi, also known as Şilan Kobanê. Şilan Kobanê was born in a family of nine, a family from the Kêtikan tribe in Kobanî. She was a member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) Central Committee when she was killed on November 29, 2004.

  • Song of the day: Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner 

    Tina Turner, who was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the USA, is a well-known singer and actress and one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She began her musical career with Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm in 1957. Under the name Little Ann, she appeared on her first record, “Boxtop”, in 1958. In 1960, she was introduced as Tina Turner with the hit duet single “A Fool in Love”. She has received 12 Grammy Awards.

  • Portrait of the day: Parvaneh Eskandari, a brave and self-sacrificing woman 

    Politician and activist Parvaneh Eskandari is a victim of the chain of murders of Iran in 1998. Before being killed, she was detained and arrested many times due to her activism. But she never gave up and fought capitalist modernity, the latest form of the male-dominated system.

  • Portrait of the day: Dolores İbárruri; “We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees” 

    Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, known as la Pasionaria (the Passionflower) was a Spanish Republican politician of the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 and a communist known for her famous slogan ¡No Pasarán!. She was born on December 9, 1895, Gallarta, to a Basque miner and a Castillian mother. She left school at fifteen after spending two years preparing for teacher's college at the encouragement of the schoolmistress. Her parents could not afford further education, so she went to work as a seamstress and later as a housemaid. She became a waitress in the town of Arboleda. There, she met Julián Ruiz Gabiña, union activist and founder of Socialist Youth of Somorrostro. They married in 1915. They participated in the general strike of 1917. Dolores İbárruri spent nights reading the works of Karl Marx and others found in the library of the Socialist Workers' Centre in Somorrostro.

  • Movie of the day: In the Time of the Butterflies 

    “In the Time of the Butterflies” is a movie that can be watched every day. It tells the story of the Mirabal sisters during the time of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.

  • Book of the day: Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement 

    Jennifer Clement is an American-Mexican author. In 2015, she was elected as the first woman president of PEN International. She also served as President of PEN Mexico from 2009 to 2012. Her books have been translated into 30 languages. She is the author of four novels: Gun Love, Prayers for the Stolen, A True Story Based on Lies, and The Poison That Fascinates.

  • Portrait of the Day: Olympe de Gouges 

    Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist whose writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in various countries.