Activist of the Free Women's Movement (TJA) Ayşe Gökkan composed a letter for Free Women's Troops (YJA-Star) guerrilla Türkan Yüksel, who fell a martyr in the ranks of the struggle for freedom, writing: "You lent yourself to freedom, and freedom suited you well."

Türkan Yüksel, nom de guerre Nûdem Maraş, who had been active in the struggle for women's rights for a long time before joining the ranks of the Free Women's Troops (YJA-Star), fell a martyr in the city of Şırnak in Northern Kurdistan during a military operation between 22-28 April 2017.

The letter Gökkan dedicated to Yüksel is as follows:

"You lent yourself to freedom, and freedom suited you well.

Türkan Yüksel led a life full of struggles. And the struggle was ever mirrored in her cheerful face. Would struggles, resistance and revolution be able to talk, Türkan would be heard. She was a woman from Kurdistan, born in the city of Maraş. Every sentence she spoke started with the word 'comrade'. Her determination broke up all walls and no obstacles were there for her to accept. She blew up all the walls that restricted life to the smallest family circle, of religious bigotry, of nationalism, of patriarchy, of the centralisation of science and much more and fought against the assimilation Kurds, Alevis and women are exposed to.

She defied the massacre Turkey perpetrated in her birth place Maraş with her struggle against nationalism. She never despised Turks or Sunnis and in the face of the horrendous massacres the Alevi community was subject over and over again, she never flinched to fight against the mentality of dominion, assimilation that only knew rejections and denial. As a Kurdish woman of the Alevi faith, she was upright in her striving against strict religiousness, nationalism and patriarchy. No one had the power to derail her from the path of "Women, Life, Freedom" and the "Democratic Nation" she was marching on steadily.

During her work in the political party, Türkan was a politician for the streets, neighbourhoods and homes of the people. She was not even anything near to the policy of bureaucracy and officialism. She lived with seeing the women self organising, working zealously on the foundation of the Democratic and Free Women's Movement (DÖKH).

As part of the campaign "We will free the will of the jailed women from the prison bars" of the independent MPs, she emblazoned Istanbul. That day the resistance in the prison cells and outside prevailed and history opened a new page in Turkey and Kurdistan to be written. Istanbul shook under the tremor of "Women, Life, Freedom."

Comrade Türkan, I shall never shed one tear for you as a tear from my eyes and sadness falling upon me, my heart will break missing you and your life dreadfully. Your life became source of envy for everyone. How much I wished to become like you, to live a suchlike honourable life. Every word and promise you fulfilled.

As a Kurdish woman I will never say farewell and you shall neither say goodbye.

Yet I do not believe that there will be anyone else to call out the word comrade with so much heart like you.

The more I will fail to ever hear your words saying "how are you comrade", the more my life will suffer a vacant space... But I also believe that you have taught many a person to speak out this dear word 'comrade' with passion.

You, the comrade of the women's freedom, comrade of the free nature, comrade of a free life, comrade of strugglers of freedom, comrade of the freedom fighters in the Middle East, comrade of the revolutionaries of freedom. I do not bid you adieu, as your glory will be ever present at all times. Your efforts for the freedom of women will never be forgotten.

You have lent yourself to nature

And nature suits you well

Ayşe Gökkan"