JINHA

ISTANBUL - In the wake of the torture and exhibition of the naked body of woman guerrilla Ekin Wan, women's groups have denounced the attack while declaring that they will not be intimidated.

One week ago, guerrilla Kevser Eltürk (nom de guerre Ekin Wan) died in a clash with Turkish security forces in the Varto district of the largely Kurdish Muş province. Security forces stripped her body naked, dragged it through the street with a rope and abandoned it in the village square.

The group New Democratic Woman (YDK) has issued a statement about the incident. "We're not scared," began the statement.

"Because we know that this state is a murderer, from the villages it has evacuated and the women it has killed under arrest. Because we know that this state is a rapist, from the women whose breasts they have cut up in torture, from the women whose will they tried to break with rape, from the women who were abandoned to sexual torture under arrest and in prison," said YDK. "We know this from your unjust dirty wars, which may not have made us ashamed of our bodies, but have made us ashamed of our humanity. We know this from Shengal, from Kobanê.

"We see very well that this misogyny of yours comes from the women fighting concessions on the barricades, in the prisons and on the mountains," the group said. "And so we are not scared of you, and we are not ashamed of our bodies."

In the town of Nusaybin, in Mardin province, women took to the streets to protest the treatment of Ekin Wan. "Ekin Wan is our naked resistance," read one sign at the protest, called by the women's group Congress of Free Women (KJA).

(fk/rk-nz/cm)