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Hundreds of Kurdish women marched Monday in the southeast of Turkey to protest government operations in Kurdish towns and cities against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The march was organized by the Congress of Free Women (KJA) and began in the majority-Kurdish eastern city of Batman before marching southward to the city of Sirnak. The protesters are demanding an end to operations and curfews in the mostly-Kurdish southeastern region of Turkey.
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Milletvekillerimiz, seçilmişlerimiz ve halkla beraber Şırnak'a doğru giderken Siirt'te girişlerimiz engelleniyor! pic.twitter.com/trPlGgwAAd
— Mehmet Ali ASLAN (@HemmedAliAslan)
January 11, 201
“Our lawmakers, our voters along with the people were blocked at Siirt as they marched towards Sirnak.”
The women protesters accuse Turkish security forces of preventing people from burying the bodies of the deceased left after clashes in the area. “Bodies aren’t being buried; humanity is dying. Lift the blockade of death,” read the slogan of the protesters.
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Initially the women were confronted by Turkish security forces on the outskirts of Batman. Police performed ID checks for several hours before detaining some of the protesters for complaining about the delay, according to Diyarbakir-based JIN news agency.
“We won’t turn over our children or our dead bodies to anyone,” Nuran Seckin, one of the marching women, told JIN. According to reports, several activists from KJA were detained.
Fact sheet on curfews imposed by Turkish forces against civilians in southeast #Turkey #TwitterKurds pic.twitter.com/NIyfoVLmeA
— Farah فَرَحْ (@RoadToPalestine)
January 11, 201
The rest of the women continued their march towards Siirt before being stopped by police some 10 miles from the city.
“If you burn 10 cities, we will build 10 cities,” said marcher Halime Avcı. “If every one of our mothers has 10 children and you kill two, we still have eight children, eight children who will fight back. Get your hands off Kurdish mothers; you can never annihilate them.”
The women remain blocked from continuing their march.
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The news comes a day after the Turkish Human Rights Foundation said in a report that since mid August at least 162 civilians were killed in Turkey’s southeast as a result of heavy clashes between Turkish security forces and the PKK.
The report also said the Turkish government has imposed 58 curfews in several cities and towns in the eastern and southeastern provinces of Batman, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Hakkari, Mardin, Mus and Sirnak.
Group of Kurds on hungerstrike to demand bodies of relatives killed by Turkish security forces in Amed #TwitterKurds pic.twitter.com/jIs53m9mio
— Farah فَرَحْ (@RoadToPalestine)
January 11, 201
Violence between the PKK and Turkey resumed in July, putting an end to a cease-fire and almost two years of peace talks. The operation against the PKK started with airstrikes against its camps and hideouts in the mountainous areas in Turkey’s south and Iraq’s north.
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In August, Ankara launched a ground operation to crack down on what it called urban groups linked to the PKK in cities and towns in the southeast.
The Turkish state and the PKK have been in conflict since 1979 when the Marxist Kurdish militants launched an insurgency seeking independence and self-rule in the southeast regions. The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people, most of them Kurdish.
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