On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, men made a press statement in Amed (tr: Diyarbakır) province on Sunday.

A number of men came together in front of AZC Plaza for the action organised with the slogan ‘Free women, free society’. The protesters opened the banner ‘Woman is life, masculine mentality is a betrayal of life’. The police confiscated a banner with the photograph of Nagihan Akarsel, a member of the Jineoloji Research Centre and academician who was murdered by the Turkish state in Sulaymaniyah province, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Addressing the crowd, Peoples' Democratic Party (DEM Party) Amed Provincial Co-chair Abbas Şahin emphasised that violence against women has intensified during recent years. Pointing to efforts to consolidate the male-dominated mentality, Şahin said, “The mentality that develops special war policies, chooses women as the first victims of this special war, murders Gülistan Doku, İpek Er and dozens of others, and then applies impunity, shows that there is a conscious policy of hiding the perpetrators.”

During the chants of ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’ (Woman, Life, Freedom), police officers tried to silence the protesters through announcements.