DİYARBAKIR- Women leading the revolution in Northern and Eastern Syria are targeted by Turkey. TJA activist Zülfiye Kişmir said: “Women at the command level are particularly targeted because they are afraid of women."

 

The social system built against the capitalist system in Northern and Eastern Syria with the struggle led by the Kurds has been Turkey's target from the very first day. The free women's line leading the construction became the nightmare of the male-dominated system. Qamişlo Canton Co-chair Yusra Derwêş, her deputy Leyman Şiwêş and Syriac Fırat Tuma lost their lives in the attack carried out by Turkey with an Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (drone) on June 20, in the region where the attacks did not stop.

 

In the last 4 years, 9 of the leading women who were targeted by Turkey and its affiliated paramilitary groups were targeted and murdered.

 

OCTOBER 12, 2019: HEVRIN XELEF IS KILLED

 

On the 4th day of the attacks on Girê Spî and Serêkaniyê cities of Northern and Eastern Syria on October 9, 2019 (12 October 1019), the Secretary General of the Syrian Future Party, Hevrin Xelef, was detained along with 7 people on the Eyn İsa highway and was tortured and killed. The torture inflicted on the body of Xelef, who was killed as a result of the ambush, was reflected in the autopsy reports. Xelef was one of the women who took a leading role in the Rojava Revolution and took part in the works.

 

JUNE 23, 2020: 3 WOMEN WERE KILLED

 

Despite all the attacks and the embargo, the struggle continued uninterruptedly. Kongra Star Euphrates Regional Coordination members Zehra Berkel and Hebûn Mela Xelil and the host Emine Weysi were targeted and murdered on June 23, 2020. An attack was carried out on the house where the women were in Hêlince village of Kobanê with the SİHA(drone) belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces.

 

JULY 22, 2022: 3 WOMEN WERE KILLED

 

Jiyan Tolhildan, Roj Xabûr and Barîn Botan, commanders of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Yekineneyên Parastina Jin (YPJ), who participated in the Middle East Women's Revolution Forum held in the city of Qamishlo on July 22, 2022, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the “Rojava Revolution”, returned from their vehicles, killed as a result of being targeted. Jiyan Tolhildan, one of the YPJ commanders, was one of the names who commanded the operation to end ISIS.

 

JUNE 20, 2023: 2 WOMEN WERE KILLED

 

Qamishlo Canton Co-chair Yusra Derwêş and her deputy Leyman Şiwêş were killed in Turkey's attack on a vehicle on the Tirbespiyê-Qamişlo road on June 20. In the same attack, the driver of the vehicle, Firat Tûma, also lost his life.

 

Free Women's Movement (TJA) activists condemned Turkey's attacks.

 

LEADING WOMEN AT THE TARGET OF ATTACKS

 

Stating that women fighting against ISIS were targeted, TJA activist Zülfiye Kişmir said: “Since 2012, there have been attacks by ISIS in the Middle East, Rojava and Shengal. There are terrible policies of massacre, especially over women and children. On the other hand, women showed a great stance. ISIS is not something that we can deal with casually, it has a deep structure. There is a great struggle against it. In Rojava, women who are raising the fight against ISIS are being targeted. Women at the command level are particularly targeted because they are afraid of women. The attacks are not daily or periodic, they are the continuation of the 5,000-year-old male-dominated system. Women in Rojava are fighting against the 5,000-year-old patriarchy system as a goddess. No attack or massacre will make a woman take a step back.”