In Istanbul Taksim, thousands of women took to the streets for the 20th Feminist Night March on March 8 despite the ban and all the police barricades, demanding equal rights, equal pay, better protection against gender-based violence, and for Turkey’s return to the Istanbul Convention.
Women enlightened the streets once again with their glitters, slogans and resilience against the darkness and oppression: “Feminist revolt will not end without establishing an equal and free world!”
This is the 20th consecutive time women in Turkey marched in what they call a “Feminist Night March” to mark the day since the tradition started in 2003. Thousands joined the night march across cities big and small, despite heavy police presence and demonstration bans in major cities like Istanbul.
Thousands gathered in Istanbul’s central Beyoğlu district to mark International Women’s Day on March 8. Police barricades set up across the city’s main square barred women from entering the area where a feminist march was planned to begin.
There was heavy police presence throughout İstiklal Avenue and the side streets leading to the avenue, making it impossible for women to enter the area. The Istanbul Governor’s Office had said a day earlier that it banned marches, protests and press statements to mark the event around Taksim Square
At least 38 women were detained in Istanbul alone while in multiple cities, police resorted to violence, with scores of women getting teargassed.
Yet the women did not leave Beyoğlu and gathered in the Cihangir district, whistled, sang, and set off flares, chanting, “We are not scared, we do not bow down.”
Alongside slogans against the war in Ukraine and economic inequality exacerbated by deepening financial crisis in the country, femicides and other violence against women remained at the top of the women’s agenda in the March 8 events this year.
Women read out the statement of the 20th Feminist Night March in Cihangir. The statement was read in Kurdish and Turkish. The statement briefly says:
“Twenty years ago, we, as a groups of feminists, gathered together in Mis Street, Taksim, said, ‘Is it a coincidence that all presidents who started a war are men?’ and started the Feminist Night March.
Tonight, on March 8, 2022, we, thousands of women, are together, under the shadow of war started by men, again. We are saying, ‘This revolt will not end without building a feminist world.
We have not only increased in numbers through the years, but also have organized a feminist struggle beyond these streets; we have established solidarity. We have seen that another world is possible against the patriarchy that oppresses us, the capitalism that exploits us, the heterosexism that tries to bring us in line.
Attacks on the İstanbul Convention and the Law No. 6284 paves the way for feminicides, male violence and trans murders. We say, we can’t tolerate losing one more person in the face of these attacks by the cooperation of male-state and patriarchy.
“Revolting against patriarchy”
As our existence is defined with family, we continue to say, ‘We are not family; we are women, we are in a feminist revolt!’
We respond to the government’s homophobic, transphobic and hateful words and the neglection of LGBTI+s rights to work, shelter and even life with our solidarity and struggle.
We don’t accept our right to alimony being usurped to empower men, who say they are ‘aggrieved.’
We don’t accept the imprisonment of women fighting patriarchy, women politicians and the closure of women’s organizations and women counseling centers with statutory decrees and trustees.
We say, ‘The feminist revolt will not end without establishing an equal and free world where there is no patriarchy, capitalism, racism, wars, invasions, religious oppression, and labor exploitation!’ Long live our feminist struggle!”