The Women’s Assemblies of the Peoples’ Democratic Congress (HDK) held a press conference with the participation of its co-spokesperson, Meral Danış Beştaş. A banner reading “Women crossing borders are building the democratic society” was displayed. The declaration text was read by Helin Oluk, a member of the HDK Women’s Coordination.
Beginning her statement by commemorating the Mirabal Sisters and women who lost their lives fighting for a free life in Rojava, Helin Oluk said they would keep alive the memory of all women who have paid the price, been murdered, or disappeared while building an equal and free life from past to present. She also stated that they would not forget the women imprisoned in jails for their struggle for equality, freedom, and socialism. Oluk added: “We oppose political operations, anti-democratic laws, and judicial harassment, and we see all these practices as attacks on women’s struggle for peace and freedom. We emphasize that the organized struggle demonstrated by the women leading the Migros resistance against precarity and exploitation is a strong and current continuation of this historical line of resistance. This year as well, we welcome March 8 with our resistance, solidarity, and self-defense.”
Oluk continued: “Today, the growing women’s freedom struggle reveals a stark reality: the male-dominated system commits crimes not only through repression but also through organized exploitation, war, and criminal policies against women, children, and the whole society. In 2025, at least 299 women and 64 children lost their lives as a result of male violence. From its very first months, 2026 is being imposed as a period in which regional conflicts are intensifying; male-state violence, war policies, and patriarchal attacks are increasing; and poverty and exploitation are being loaded even more heavily onto women’s shoulders. However, cross-border women’s solidarity is also growing. We organize this hope by saying ‘Self-defense sustains life.’ Through campaigns, we carry out from neighborhoods to campuses, from workplaces to squares, we strengthen our self-organization. Because we know: self-organization is self-defense.”
Stating that they see the struggle of all peoples around the world as their own, Oluk said: “Against all gangs and oppressive regimes that target women through sexism and racism, we are expanding our internationalist, united solidarity. Against militarism, misogyny, war, and genocidal policies, we come together in an internationalist women’s struggle that goes beyond solidarity. Just as those who are enemies of women are united, we women are also one. We unite our struggle for the Istanbul Convention, for our self-defense, for peace, for the Rojava Women’s Revolution, and against femicides. As we did yesterday, we will be in the streets today to weave peace together with a democratic society. Because no peace in which women’s freedom is not guaranteed will be lasting. A democratic society will gain its true meaning only through women’s organized struggle.”
Meral Danış Beştaş said: “Today we are together, and this is also a program of struggle about how we stand together at a historical threshold, about the dimensions of violence against women, and about how we will welcome March 8. This text is not just a call; it is a declaration of organized will. We all know very well that Turkey is going through a deep political and economic crisis. This crisis is not experienced equally by everyone. But its burden is placed most heavily on the shoulders of women, young people, and workers.”
Referring to the 27 February call, Danış Beştaş said: “Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s Call for Peace and a Democratic Society increases and supports women’s determination to struggle, and I state that in a democratic society we will live together as free women and that we will struggle together for this.”
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