Zeynep Kınacı (Zilan) who sacrificed her life in Dersim on June 30, 1996 was born in Malatya province in 1972. Her family is originally from Elmalı village of Malatya and the tribe Mamureki.

After visiting the primary, secondary and high school, Zilan continues her university education at the Department of Psychological Counseling and Guidance at İnönü University in the province of Malatya.

She works as x-ray technician at Malatya State Hospital before joining the Kurdish Freedom Movement. She has a middle class family affected by feudalism and with reflections of small bourgeois Kemalist structure.

DEDICATION, DETERMINATION, MORALE AND DECISION MAKING

Zeynep Kınacı (Zilan) leads a kind of free life in the family environment. She becomes acquainted with leftist ideas and Kurdishness during her high school times. Her interest grows more during the university years. She later adopts a closer stance for the PKK movement.

In 1994, she starts running front activities in Adana and spends a year with related works. Regarding this process, she tells that; "I didn't go through a serious process of training. I actually failed to make further advances and to succeed due to the absence of sufficient support after the arrest of executive members, causes making the individual more civilian and less effective, and reasons hindering a transformation of my personality."

In 1995, she joins the guerrilla ranks in the province of Dersim. Within her times in the ranks of the Kurdish freedom movement, she achieves an improvement by recognizing all the aspects of her personality in comparison to her present and past. She grows stronger in respect of dedication, determination, morale and making herself clear. On the basis of her concentration lies not only the history of Kurds and Kurdistan, but also the reality of an awakening folk, its leading force PKK, its ideology and its Leader. In 1996, she manifests a militant stance in the face of the war concept formed against the national liberation movement.

'I WANT TO BE THE KURDISH WOMEN'S SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE'

Zilan, who carries out a suicide attack against Turkish soldiers participating a flag raising ceremony in Dersim city center on 30 June 1996 on the basis of PKK's pledge to own the heritage of resistance, says "I want to be the Kurdish women's symbol of resistance", and becomes a new manifest of life for the Kurdish women and Kurdish history.

The action by Zilan, who detonates the explosive on her body after diving into the crowd of soldiers, leaves 5 soldiers dead and 35 others wounded, most of them seriously. This action becomes a turning point for the Kurdish Freedom Movement and leaves a lasting and deep impression on both the Kurdish people and guerrilla.