SARYA DENİZ

News Center- Women who reveal the truth and fight for freedom in Türkiye and Kurdistan have been targeted by the ruling party. In recent years, many pioneering such as Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, Leyla Şaylemez, Nagihan Akarsel, Hevrin Khalaf, Yadê Eqîda, Zeyneb Saroxan and Zehra Berkel have been targeted and killed.

Kurdish women resist the limits drawn by the patriarchal mindset in all facets of life, including journalism. Women journalists write the truth and make it heard all around the world with the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” philosophy. Women journalists in the Middle East are arrested, threatened, sentenced to death because they report the truth. On August 23, 2024, a Turkish drone targeted a vehicle carrying journalists in the Saidsadiq district of Sulaymaniyah, killing two women journalists, Gülistan Tara and Hêro Bahadîn, and injuring six journalists.

On October 4, 2022, Nagihan Akarsel, journalist, writer and member of Jineology Academy, was targeted and killed in front of her home in Sulaymaniyah. On November 20, 2022, a Turkish airstrike on Derik (Al-Malikiyah), a city in northern Syria, killed nine people, including Hawar News Agency (ANHA) reporter Essam Abdullah and injured three others. On August 24, 2023, a Turkish drone targeted a vehicle carrying reporters of JIN TV on the Qamishlo-Amude road, killing JIN TV employee Necmeddin Feysel Heci and injuring a JIN TV reporter. On July 8, 2024, a Turkish drone on Shengal (Sinjar) killed Çira TV reporter Murad Mirza Ibrahim.

‘Journalists are always targeted’

 

Journalists are always targeted by governments, journalist Ceren Bayar said. “Journalists are always the targets of non-democratic and authoritarian governments that maintain their power from conflicts and war. They do not hesitate to take reckless steps within and outside of countries and they do everything to make their steps visible. Therefore, they target, judge, kill journalists and leave them unemployed. Despite everything, journalists never give up reporting the truth.”

‘We should speak out today’

Journalists Gülistan Tara and Hêro Bahadîn never gave up reporting the truth, Ceren Bayar added. “They were targeted while trying to report the truth. They were women and civilians.” Ceren Bayar also reminded international law and the conventions that protect journalists.

“According to international law, targeting journalists in any type of conflict is prohibited. We should speak out today so that no more murders are committed, no more journalists or civilians are killed, and the truth is not hidden.

“Two Kurdish women journalists, two civilians were killed in a drone attack in another country,” said Ceren Bayar. “Both Türkiye and the international community should think of this sentence and object to it.” Pointing to the Kurdish question, she stressed that the Kurdish question could not be solved by cross-border operations, weapons, war and killing civilians. “Our responsibility is to tell these facts to the people in Türkiye and insist on a resolution dialogue.”

 ‘Human rights are under threat’

“Legal human rights that humanity has gained by struggling are under great threat,” said journalist Candan Yıldız. “Journalism should be under the protection of international law; however, the whole world is going through a process without law and rules. If there were rights and rules, Kurdish press workers would not have been killed in bombardment in the territory of a country that has sovereignty, or human rights organizations and journalists’ organizations would have raised their voices.”

‘It seems like the attack was carried out as a part of an agreement between states’

 

Any attack against journalists and media workers is a crime, Candan Yıldız stressed. “It seems like the attack that took place in Sulaymaniyah was carried out as a part of an agreement between states. The world will become a less livable place as long as policies without law and built on destruction keep targeting journalists.”