We want to live in a world with no wars, freely, in equality and peace
17Haziran2025,Salı
The United States and Israel's policies of tearing the Middle East apart continue unabated. Israel has been carrying out a full-scale genocide in Gaza, which it has occupied for a year and a half, and continues to carry out air strikes targeting civilians in Lebanon and Syria. On June 13, 2025, with US support, it launched a major attack on our neighbor Iran. Israel is targeting nuclear facilities in Iran to normalize its occupation and expansionist policies.
Those who attack Iran and support the attack are using the Islamist regime's anti-women policies to legitimize their occupation policies. For example, while Israel is killing people, including women, men, and children, and illegally settling Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories it occupies, poisons or steals water sources essential for the survival of the Palestinian people, uproots olive trees, and destroys hospitals where patients can be treated, pregnant women can give birth, and newborn babies can be cared for, while propagating the notion that it is the safest country in the Middle East for women and LGBTI+ individuals.
Do not instrumentalize women and women's issues
It is true that the Mullah regime in Iran indeed views women as second-class citizens, has many anti-egalitarian practices, and oppresses women and everyone who fights for their freedoms. However, it is clear that this situation is of no concern to the colonialist occupying states. The US completely ignored the Taliban's oppression of women and the people of Afghanistan in the 1990s. After the suspicious explosions in the US on September 11, 2001, it suddenly remembered and used it as a pretext to invade Afghanistan. In 2021, it left Afghanistan’s women and children at the mercy of the Taliban regime, which it had been feeding with its own hands, and left Afghanistan. Today, the occupying state of Israel is doing the same. Israel is also attacking four countries in the Middle East at once, using the suspicious October 7, 2023, Hamas attack as an excuse. It is trying to use the regime's “Islamist” oppression as an excuse for the attack on Iran.
Where these wars and attack policies, conducted putatively for “security” reasons, have led us is clear: Afghanistan, the only country where girls cannot go to school, is among the poorest countries in the world. The result achieved by regional and global hegemonic powers that fueled the civil war in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime, causing millions of people to be displaced and killed is clear: A Syria ruled by the political Islamist HTŞ, where Alawites (Alevis) and other minorities are being massacred, women's freedom of dress is being taken away, they are being kidnapped and sexually assaulted, and people are living in poverty, fear, and anxiety.
Of course, as the Women's Platform for Equality (EŞİK), Türkiye, as women, we oppose oppressive, authoritarian, and misogynistic regimes. For this reason, we stand with women and the democratic forces in these countries who are fighting for equality, freedom, and peace against the Taliban and Iran’s Islamic regime. However, we are completely opposed to the strategy of global imperialist and capitalist powers instrumentalizing women's rights.
We reject both local patriarchy dressed in religious and cultural garb and imperial patriarchy, which prioritizes the interests of authoritarian states that protect the security of transnational corporations rather than the security of people, and the interests of a handful of rich people rather than the welfare of the people.
Authoritarian patriarchal mindsets are bringing about the end of the world
Patriarchal mindsets have destroyed nature for centuries, and ruined people's lives with arms spending and wars. These patriarchal systems, based on dominating and fully exploiting both humans and nature, are bringing about the end of the world with the human and ecological destruction they have caused. They are staining the 21st century with blood.
We see that the governments that have started wars in Palestine, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and too many other places to name; the governments and companies that seek to profit from these wars; and the male-dominated institutions that seek to subjugate nature, society, women, LGBTI+ people, and all those they see as “other” do not want peace in the world.
The rising wave of masculinist authoritarianism around the world disregards the fundamental human rights and the principle of equality that have been accepted because of centuries of struggle. It destroys all the democratic institutions that have been won.
We women want PEACE. We want to take our place in the peace process to build a lasting, sustainable peace together.
We will not give up the struggle for equal representation in all areas and a life free from violence. We will not accept any form of discrimination, patriarchy, capitalist distribution wars, militarism, or expansionist policies.
For this reason;
We call on all humanity to speak out more strongly against military aggression and occupation. We must go beyond abstract wishes for peace and speak out more strongly not only against war, but also against armament, nationalism, racism, sexism, and militarism.
The members of the UN Security Council, particularly the permanent members who are the world's largest arms exporters, as well as governments that send troops and weapons to conflict zones and support attacks and occupations, are responsible for all war casualties and humanitarian crises. We remind the International Criminal Court of its true mission.
We do not want to live in Türkiye under the threat of war, economic crisis, and attacks on women's gains and human rights; we want to live in a nonviolent and peaceful country. We call on the political authorities to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of neighboring countries and to abandon governance based on ethnicity, religious belief, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination in Syria, Iran, and Türkiye. We want economic and political democracy and a purple-green-public economy based on care for the people and the planet.
Our most urgent need is to ensure internal peace in the country as soon as possible. We demand a peace process built on transparent and concrete goals, with all political and social forces working together to take effective steps toward achieving real social peace beyond abstract promises.
We want to live in a world with no wars, freely, in equality and peace
The United States and Israel's policies of tearing the Middle East apart continue unabated. Israel has been carrying out a full-scale genocide in Gaza, which it has occupied for a year and a half, and continues to carry out air strikes targeting civilians in Lebanon and Syria. On June 13, 2025, with US support, it launched a major attack on our neighbor Iran. Israel is targeting nuclear facilities in Iran to normalize its occupation and expansionist policies.
Those who attack Iran and support the attack are using the Islamist regime's anti-women policies to legitimize their occupation policies. For example, while Israel is killing people, including women, men, and children, and illegally settling Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories it occupies, poisons or steals water sources essential for the survival of the Palestinian people, uproots olive trees, and destroys hospitals where patients can be treated, pregnant women can give birth, and newborn babies can be cared for, while propagating the notion that it is the safest country in the Middle East for women and LGBTI+ individuals.
Do not instrumentalize women and women's issues
It is true that the Mullah regime in Iran indeed views women as second-class citizens, has many anti-egalitarian practices, and oppresses women and everyone who fights for their freedoms. However, it is clear that this situation is of no concern to the colonialist occupying states. The US completely ignored the Taliban's oppression of women and the people of Afghanistan in the 1990s. After the suspicious explosions in the US on September 11, 2001, it suddenly remembered and used it as a pretext to invade Afghanistan. In 2021, it left Afghanistan’s women and children at the mercy of the Taliban regime, which it had been feeding with its own hands, and left Afghanistan. Today, the occupying state of Israel is doing the same. Israel is also attacking four countries in the Middle East at once, using the suspicious October 7, 2023, Hamas attack as an excuse. It is trying to use the regime's “Islamist” oppression as an excuse for the attack on Iran.
Where these wars and attack policies, conducted putatively for “security” reasons, have led us is clear: Afghanistan, the only country where girls cannot go to school, is among the poorest countries in the world. The result achieved by regional and global hegemonic powers that fueled the civil war in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime, causing millions of people to be displaced and killed is clear: A Syria ruled by the political Islamist HTŞ, where Alawites (Alevis) and other minorities are being massacred, women's freedom of dress is being taken away, they are being kidnapped and sexually assaulted, and people are living in poverty, fear, and anxiety.
Of course, as the Women's Platform for Equality (EŞİK), Türkiye, as women, we oppose oppressive, authoritarian, and misogynistic regimes. For this reason, we stand with women and the democratic forces in these countries who are fighting for equality, freedom, and peace against the Taliban and Iran’s Islamic regime. However, we are completely opposed to the strategy of global imperialist and capitalist powers instrumentalizing women's rights.
We reject both local patriarchy dressed in religious and cultural garb and imperial patriarchy, which prioritizes the interests of authoritarian states that protect the security of transnational corporations rather than the security of people, and the interests of a handful of rich people rather than the welfare of the people.
Authoritarian patriarchal mindsets are bringing about the end of the world
Patriarchal mindsets have destroyed nature for centuries, and ruined people's lives with arms spending and wars. These patriarchal systems, based on dominating and fully exploiting both humans and nature, are bringing about the end of the world with the human and ecological destruction they have caused. They are staining the 21st century with blood.
We see that the governments that have started wars in Palestine, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and too many other places to name; the governments and companies that seek to profit from these wars; and the male-dominated institutions that seek to subjugate nature, society, women, LGBTI+ people, and all those they see as “other” do not want peace in the world.
The rising wave of masculinist authoritarianism around the world disregards the fundamental human rights and the principle of equality that have been accepted because of centuries of struggle. It destroys all the democratic institutions that have been won.
We women want PEACE. We want to take our place in the peace process to build a lasting, sustainable peace together.
We will not give up the struggle for equal representation in all areas and a life free from violence. We will not accept any form of discrimination, patriarchy, capitalist distribution wars, militarism, or expansionist policies.
For this reason;
We call on all humanity to speak out more strongly against military aggression and occupation. We must go beyond abstract wishes for peace and speak out more strongly not only against war, but also against armament, nationalism, racism, sexism, and militarism.
The members of the UN Security Council, particularly the permanent members who are the world's largest arms exporters, as well as governments that send troops and weapons to conflict zones and support attacks and occupations, are responsible for all war casualties and humanitarian crises. We remind the International Criminal Court of its true mission.
We do not want to live in Türkiye under the threat of war, economic crisis, and attacks on women's gains and human rights; we want to live in a nonviolent and peaceful country. We call on the political authorities to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of neighboring countries and to abandon governance based on ethnicity, religious belief, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination in Syria, Iran, and Türkiye. We want economic and political democracy and a purple-green-public economy based on care for the people and the planet.
Our most urgent need is to ensure internal peace in the country as soon as possible. We demand a peace process built on transparent and concrete goals, with all political and social forces working together to take effective steps toward achieving real social peace beyond abstract promises.
EŞİK - The Women's Platform for Equality, Türkiye
17 June 2025
www.esik.org.tr
iletisim@esikplatform.net
Some of EŞiK’s previous statements on the matter:
https://esikplatform.net/en/category/english/74263/the-world-forgot-women-and-children-living-under-taliban-oppression-in-afghanistan-for-3-years
https://esik.org.tr/kategori/basin-aciklamalari/73767/evde-sokakta-isyerinde-yurtta-ve-dunyada-siddete-ve-savasa-hayir
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Translated with DeepL.com (free version) and edited for accuracy by Su.