Activist and academic Nagihan Akarsel, editor of the Jineology magazine and member of Jineology Research Center, was targeted by an armed attack in Sulaymaniyah city of southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) at around 10 am local time on Tuesday morning.

A figure well-known for her work on women, Jineology, and women’s journalism, Akarsel was born in the Turkish province of Konya and had been living in Sulaymaniyah for many years as part of her Jineology studies. In the scope of a project, the journalist-writer was working for the establishment of a Jineology Academy and a Library of Kurdistan Women in Sulaymaniyah.

The Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) Commission on Women released a statement calling for action after the killing of Nagihan Akarsel.

The statement released by KNK Women’s Commission includes the following:

“This morning, the academic and scientist of Jineology (Science of Women) Nagehan Akarsel was assassinated in South Kurdistan. Nagihan Akarsel was one of the women who implemented the "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî philosophy" as the principle of the women's revolution in the 21st century in Kurdistan. The Academy of Jineology in Sulaymaniyah, where Nagehan Akarsel was a leader, is explicitly engaged in a social-scientist revolution against all forms of patriarchal repression.

Erdogan's regime, which sees the democratic revolution through the Kurdish women's movement as a threat to its maintenance of power, prac1ces feminicide in its genocide. Therefore, the Turkish extermination strategy is a symbiosis between genocide and feminicide.

As long as there is no firm policy on the part of the political leadership of PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) in Sulaymaniyah and the Iraqi government in Baghdad, Erdogan will continue to carry out his war against the Kurds, as well as in Syria and Iraq, beyond his borders. The killing of Nagehan Akarsel is the fifth extrajudicial execution of political and social activists in Sulaymaniyah this year.

In addition to the PUK and the Iraqi central government, NATO, the EU and the Council of Europe are also called upon to stop Turkey’s extrajudicial executions, as Turkey is their partner. The assassination of Nagehan Akarsel also targets all the women who have been fighting with their slogans of “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” since the unrest in Iran began, offering a glimmer of hope for a better future.

We call on all women in South Kurdistan particularly, but also women in the whole of Kurdistan and abroad, to take a clear stand against these extra-legal executions. In order to do this, women must take to the streets and shout “Jin Jiyan Azadî” in all languages of the world.

Because a future with democracy, freedom and equality is only possible if it is led by women of the tradition of” Jin, Jiyan, Azadî”.

We must end the rule of the patriarchy, which in this century, with dictatorships, fascists, despots and aggressors, is destroying more and more people, natural habitats and the entire environment for their own personal greed and power.

With “Jin Jiyan, Azadî”, this is possible. Let us stand together and raise the chant “Jin Jiyan, Azadî” against patriarchy, dictators and the enemies of humanity everywhere.”