End Police Intervention against Demonstrators and Violence of Strip Searches of Women!
March22,2025
People in Turkey who want to protect their future by exercising their constitutional right to assembly and demonstration march are being subjected to police brutality. This is the case even though the duty of the police should be to protect the safety of demonstrators exercising their most basic rights. We strongly condemn the violence specifically targeting young women and the torture of strip searches in these interventions, which reflect the misogyny that has been consciously escalated in recent years.
This morning, we learned that 7 women who were detained during house raids in Ankara were subjected to strip searches by the Ankara Police and were beaten for resisting the strip search. This inhumane practice is torture and a crime against humanity.
Since 2016, the policies of appointing trustees (kayyum) to elected municipalities have been implemented. As a continuation of these policies, we are witnessing a series of unlawful acts such as unlawful acts, including diploma revocations, unlawful arrests, blocking of city transportation and internet access. We do not accept the response to women who rightfully protest these unlawful acts on the streets. The police’s response is the latest blow to the right to vote, for which women have struggled for hundreds of years, and which is indispensable for democracy.
Access to many opposition Twitter / X accounts such as women's organizations, youth and environmental organizations is now blocked in Turkey. The account of the Women’s Platform for Equality, Turkey (EŞİK) is among those blocked, with the number of affected accounts increasing. We condemn this oppressive and censorious violation of the freedom of expression, information, and organization.
We will continue to grow our struggle in solidarity. The government has made women and young people, who have been the main actors of organized struggle for decades, special targets. This is because the streets have been organized under the leadership of women and youth who do not remain silent, who do not fear, and who do not obey. The security forces intervene with unprecedented harshness against those who take to the streets to exercise their constitutional rights to assembly and demonstration, by poisoning the children of the people with pepper gas, a chemical weapon, by injuring them with rubber bullets, while not hesitating to rape human dignity by imposing strip searches on women.
No matter what they do, women will not stop resisting in the frontlines of the protests because women are not new to the organized struggle against the misogynist policies of the government. Women have always been on the streets, always in resistance. They have never left the streets and squares at night, nor will they ever leave! We will win by uniting against the oppressive regime that imposes injustice and inequality on nature, women, human beings, and political opponents.
We will not give up our lives, our rights, and our dreams!
Long live women's solidarity, long live the solidarity of the children of the people, long live our organized struggle!
End Police Intervention against Demonstrators and Violence of Strip Searches of Women!
People in Turkey who want to protect their future by exercising their constitutional right to assembly and demonstration march are being subjected to police brutality. This is the case even though the duty of the police should be to protect the safety of demonstrators exercising their most basic rights. We strongly condemn the violence specifically targeting young women and the torture of strip searches in these interventions, which reflect the misogyny that has been consciously escalated in recent years.
This morning, we learned that 7 women who were detained during house raids in Ankara were subjected to strip searches by the Ankara Police and were beaten for resisting the strip search. This inhumane practice is torture and a crime against humanity.
Since 2016, the policies of appointing trustees (kayyum) to elected municipalities have been implemented. As a continuation of these policies, we are witnessing a series of unlawful acts such as unlawful acts, including diploma revocations, unlawful arrests, blocking of city transportation and internet access. We do not accept the response to women who rightfully protest these unlawful acts on the streets. The police’s response is the latest blow to the right to vote, for which women have struggled for hundreds of years, and which is indispensable for democracy.
Access to many opposition Twitter / X accounts such as women's organizations, youth and environmental organizations is now blocked in Turkey. The account of the Women’s Platform for Equality, Turkey (EŞİK) is among those blocked, with the number of affected accounts increasing. We condemn this oppressive and censorious violation of the freedom of expression, information, and organization.
We will continue to grow our struggle in solidarity. The government has made women and young people, who have been the main actors of organized struggle for decades, special targets. This is because the streets have been organized under the leadership of women and youth who do not remain silent, who do not fear, and who do not obey. The security forces intervene with unprecedented harshness against those who take to the streets to exercise their constitutional rights to assembly and demonstration, by poisoning the children of the people with pepper gas, a chemical weapon, by injuring them with rubber bullets, while not hesitating to rape human dignity by imposing strip searches on women.
No matter what they do, women will not stop resisting in the frontlines of the protests because women are not new to the organized struggle against the misogynist policies of the government. Women have always been on the streets, always in resistance. They have never left the streets and squares at night, nor will they ever leave! We will win by uniting against the oppressive regime that imposes injustice and inequality on nature, women, human beings, and political opponents.
We will not give up our lives, our rights, and our dreams!
Long live women's solidarity, long live the solidarity of the children of the people, long live our organized struggle!
EŞİK_The Women Platform for Equality, Turkey
22.03.2025
www.esik.org.tr
EŞİK’s new X account: @esikplatformu
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