The coffin carrying the body of Nagihan Akarsel, the Kurdish feminist academic and founding member of the Sulaymaniyah-based Jineolojî Academy arrived in her hometown city of Konya in Turkey 9 days after her assassination in Sulaymaniyah and was buried among extraordinary security measures, reported Mezopotamya News Agency.
The authorities had already, days before, prevented the coffin of Akarsel being sent by air cargo from Kurdistan Region of Iraq, apparently due to “missing documents”.
However, the ambulance carrying the coffin of Nagihan Akarsel finally reached Konya and was then taken to Konya City Hospital for more autopsy procedures.
Akarsel’s body was then transported to her final resting place and buried in Gölyazı village of Cihanbeyli district following the autopsy.
Before the funeral ceremony Turkish soldiers had threatened Akarsel’s family and had pressurised them to ‘bury her quietly’ and that villagers and other mourners were not to attend the ceremony. A very wide exclusion zone was set up with checkpoints stopping those who wanted to attend the funeral while others stood by the roadside and paid their respects as Nagihan’s body passed carried in an ambulance.
“There will be no slogans. We will break the fingers of those who make a victory sign. Bury her quietly. we will burn this village and we will drive you out of here if anything happens,” the gendarmerie had said to the family.
The journalists Dilan Babat and Fırat Can Arslan have also been detained by the security forces.
Plainclothes police and gendarmerie teams of 10-15 vehicles also went around the houses of the people living in Gölyazı village and threatened them to not participate in the condolence ceremonies.
During the burial, women resisted the soldiers trying to block them carrying Akarsel’s photo and marched with the photo proudly chanting “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (Woman, Life, Freedom) in memory of their comrade.
HDP MPs, her comrades from the Jineoloji Academy, Mezopotamya Women Journalists Platform (MGKP) and many other journalists went to Akarsel’s home in Gölyazı village of Konya city to support the family.
Women in Hakkari (Colemerg) and the Free Women’s Movement (TJA) in Ağrı (Agirî) were among many who also commemorated the death of Nagihan Akarsel chanting “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (Woman, Life, Freedom).
Source:MedyaNews
