KJK: Before the eyes of the whole world, Turkey openly commits war crimes in Rojava

KJK calls for the defence of the women's revolution of Rojava and urges the states of the US-led international coalition against ISIS to abandon their hypocrisy and to stop considering Kurds as useful material against the Turkish state.

The Kurdistan Women’s Community (KJK) Coordination released a statement condemning the Turkish attacks on the autonomous region of Northern and Eastern Syria, saying: "The fascist, genocidal Turkish state is applying a brutal and despicable version of the ISIS mentality towards the peoples of Rojava, Northern and Eastern Syria. The simplest and most naked reality of its anti-Kurdish policy is once again to cut the lifelines of our people and force them onto migration routes and turn them into refugees in order to change the demographic structure. During the attacks, vital infrastructure to provide water, electricity and grain to the people was bombed and rendered non-functional. We remember all the martyrs who lost their lives in inhumane, brutal and genocidal attacks and promise to keep their memory alive in our struggle. We offer our condolences to their families and to our people."

The statement by the KJK Coordination continued: "Before the eyes of the whole world, the Turkish state has openly committed war crimes in Rojava. The whole world has closed its eyes to this reality. It is a well-known fact that the hegemonic imperialist powers and the nation states of the status quo in the region are silent and do not react in order to support and pave the way for their self-interests. As peoples and women, we are aware of this reality. However, the silence and inaction of those who call themselves leftist, socialist and on the side of the oppressed, and the groups, organisations and forces that claim to be fighting for this cause, are shameful and unacceptable. Moreover, it is not right to call and accept the inactivity of some Kurdish parties and organisations, especially in South Kurdistan, only as fear and self-preservation. It is clear that the situation into which the enemy has plunged the Kurds is an expression of fear and self-preservation for some, but an expression of collaboration and self-betrayal for others."

The Turkish state has reached a dead end with its policy and is committing war crimes, the KJK said, pointing to the latest fatality of Turkish aggression in Rojava, where 65-year-old Amsha Khalil al-Bakari died in an artillery attack on her house near Ain Issa on Saturday. “The Turkish state's treatment of women as war booty and commodities is a manifestation in the spirit of ISIS. There are dozens of examples of this, such as the Kurdish politician Hevrîn Xelef, brutally murdered in Rojava during the Turkish invasion in October 2019, or the guerrilla fighter Ekin Wan, whose naked body was desecrated and displayed by soldiers in Northern Kurdistan in 2015.”

"Similar images can be seen in many conflicts and on many battlefields. We see them in the war in the Balkans, in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and most recently in the war between Hamas and Israel. We find it abhorrent that the bodies of murdered women are stripped naked, displayed and trampled on. This is a practice of fascism and the ISIS mentality. We condemn these despicable attacks on women. No matter who perpetrates them, in whose name and identity, it is a male-dominated, fascist attack that must be fought without restraint. We call on all women to oppose and speak out against this shameful, disgraceful and inhuman attitude of masculinity," KJK said.

The KJK called for the defence of the women's revolution of Rojava and urges the states of the US-led international coalition against ISIS to abandon their hypocrisy and to stop considering Kurds as useful material against the Turkish state and to sacrifice them for their own interests.