"Jin Jiyan Azadî – Day by day we defend ourselves and life," said Kongra Star, the umbrella organization of the women’s movement in North-East Syria, in a message of solidarity with the struggle of women in India.
Following the rape and murder of a 31-year-old intern doctor in Koltata, India, on 9 August, Indian doctors went on a national strike on Saturday against the ‘barbaric’ murder. Tens of thousands of Indians joined the protest movement. Banners reading ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ [Woman, Life, Freedom] were also displayed during the protests.
As Kurdish women have also expressed support for Indian women, Kongra Star, the umbrella organization of the women’s movement in North-East Syria, also issued a message expressing solidarity with the struggle of women in India.
The statement released by Kongra Star Assembly on Monday includes the following:
“If we have been experiencing a women’s revolution in Rojava for 12 years now, it is also because we know that we as women can never stop fighting for freedom. Because as long as patriarchy, state violence and occupation, sexism and the dominant male mentality are hegemonic, neither we women nor our societies will be free.
Today, when thousands of doctors in India take to the streets and go on strike under the slogan “Jin Jiyan Azadî”, it is because we understand that we have to defend ourselves together against all the attacks of this hegemonic masculinity, which is spread all over the world and protected by patriarchal systems in institutions and the state.
As long as it is a daily reality that women like the politician Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit in Turkey are beaten up for their commitment to democratic processes and solutions in parliament; as long as it is an everyday reality that a young woman like Moumita Debnath, a junior doctor, can be raped and murdered during her break in a hospital in Kolkata, India; as long as it is a daily reality that women activists like Pakhshan Azizi are tortured and sentenced to death for their political and social activism in Iran, we as women must fight together against this patriarchal system and its mentality.
We therefore welcome the women’s uprising and the doctors’ strike in India! We welcome the worldwide campaigns against the death penalty for women activists in Iran. We welcome all the struggles and solidarity of women and freedom-seeking societies worldwide and take these current events as an opportunity to say
Against feminicide and patriarchy, we stand together worldwide!
We will not be raped, beaten or murdered!
We stand up for each other, we organise and network!
We defend ourselves and life!
Jin Jiyan Azadî”
