Turkish police attacked even before the women’s rally began. The lawful and legitimate peaceful rally was organized by the Ankara Women’s Platform. The police blocked the way to prevent the women from gathering and marching. Police pursued the women who tried escaping the police beating. About ten people were detained.
Police attack on Ankara Women’s Platform Rally: Many Women detained
Turkish police attacked even before the women’s rally began. The lawful and legitimate peaceful rally was organized by the Ankara Women’s Platform. The police blocked the way to prevent the women from gathering and marching. Police pursued the women who tried escaping the police beating. About ten people were detained.
The police blockaded the area before the action even took place. Rally was organized by the Ankara Women’s Platform. Women planned the rally for the March 8th Women’s Day call in front of Çankaya Municipality in Ankara, the nation’s capital. Women and journalists were searched many times as they approached the rally location. As the women moved to the scene of the planned demonstration, police repeatedly tried to cut them off but were unable to stop them.
The women reacted and protested being followed by the cops. However, the police attacked a separate crowd heading towards Konur Street where women were to meet. Other citizens who reacted and recorded videos of the police beating the women were also assaulted by the police and removed from the area. About ten people were detained in Konur Street, including Sendika.Org Ankara correspondent Tankut Serttas.
The statement text of the Ankara Women’s Platform is as follows:
We come here with a rebellion for the murdered women. We come with the storm of the working women who take ownership of their own labor. We come with the wrath of women who have to kill to avoid dying. We come with the cry of girls who are forced to marry and are condemned to male violence and sexual abuse by the state. We come with the courage of imprisoned women who don’t even surrender in prisons. We come by taking possession of our gender, our sexual identity, our life, our way of life, and each other. We come by raising the voice of peace against those waging war to maintain their power. We don’t allow the rights we won by a struggle to be usurped. We are not giving up the Istanbul Convention! We know that poverty and gender inequality are not our destiny. We do not allow domestic labor to be invisible or the reduction of women’s employment.
The rest of the statement reads:
We’re not giving up our right to alimony. We don’t recognize your misogynistic laws. With the enthusiasm of all the women who made March 8th, we march as heirs to a historical rebellion. To change the world, we stitch life together in all our colors! We do not shut up in the face of male and state power. We are not afraid of your persecution. We disobey your rotten, rotten, miserable, masculine order! We exist in all areas of life; we continue to exist. We didn’t leave the streets or the squares at night; we don’t leave! We are going back to March 8th against male and state violence, crisis, and poverty. We know that patriarchal capitalism is the primary source of all attacks on our living spaces, both in poverty and violence. And we are escalating the women’s struggle to send this real crisis into the dustbin of history!
As women from Ankara; We meet at Tandogan Square at 14.00 on Sunday, March 6th, to raise hope.
Sendika.Org News (MB)