No society can be free without women’s freedom.
On 16 September, the fourth anniversary of the martyrdom of Jina Amini is commemorated. Jina Amini, who was killed in Tehran by the morality police of the Iranian regime, is remembered today not only as a victim, but as a historic turning point in women’s struggle against a patriarchal state system.
Women’s sources and feminist activists affirm that Jina, through her silence and resistance to the imposition of mandatory hijab, demonstrated that women were no longer willing to be instruments in the hands of patriarchal politics.
Following her assassination, millions of women took to the streets of Tehran, Saqqez, Sina, and cities across Iran and Kurdistan. By cutting their hair, they not only symbolically severed their ties with the dominant system, but also expressed, in a radical political act, their message: “We will no longer surrender our bodies, our lives, and our decisions to the state.”
Moreover, the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” which emerged from Jina’s grave and became the anthem of the revolution, demonstrated that this slogan is also the ideology put into practice by the Women’s Protection Units in Rojava, through tremendous sacrifices and the blood of women martyrs such as Arîn Mîrkan and Avesta Xabûr in Kobanê and throughout North and East Syria.
The Women’s Protection Units, as an army of women, have demonstrated that women’s freedom is not achieved through demands alone, but also through self-defence, organisation, and the building of an alternative system.
Therefore, the relationship between Jina and the Women’s Protection Units is not a distant emotional connection, but an ideological and political unity within one revolution—a revolution that declares: “Without women’s freedom, no society can be free.” Through their sacrifices, women have become a symbol of this truth, while the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) have become the guarantor of protecting this truth on the ground.
