Jin Jiyan Azadî – Day by day we defend ourselves and life!

If we have been living 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