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By decrees n° 675 and 676 pro­mul­gat­ed on Octo­ber 29 2016 in light of the state of emer­gency enforced since the attempt­ed coup d’é­tat on July 15, the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment closed down 2 news agen­cies, JİNHA and DİHA. In all, 10 news­pa­pers and 3 mag­a­zines were shut down.

Accord­ing to Bianet’s “Media Obser­va­tion Report” for the peri­od of July, August, and Sep­tem­ber, 107 jour­nal­ists and 10 dis­trib­u­tors were jailed. 78 cor­re­spon­dents were arrest­ed, and in the con­text of the state of emer­gency, 775 press cards and 49 passe­ports were sup­pressed. Close to 2500 jour­nal­ists and staff from shut-down medias have lost their jobs.

logos-agences-jinha-diha-fermesDİHA and JİNHA are agen­cies Kedis­tan, among oth­ers, fol­lows reg­u­lar­ly as pre­cious sources of infor­ma­tion. Their staff is reg­u­lar­ly chased down, and tak­en into cus­tody… Zehra Dogan, present­ly in prison await­ing tri­al, is a liv­ing exam­ple of this.

JİNHA, Jin Haber Ajan­sı (lit­er­al­ly, “Woman News Agency”) found­ed March 8 2012, has the dis­tinc­tion of being the first news agency in the world whose con­trib­u­tors are all women.

Fol­low­ing the announce­ment of its clos­ing down, the agency pub­lished a press release declar­ing its deter­mi­na­tion to car­ry on the work and re-affirm­ing once again the impor­tance of its edi­to­r­i­al line.

JİNHA start­ed out with the legit­i­mate goal of “chang­ing the lan­guage of media”. It man­aged not only in mak­ing its mark but in impos­ing its style with all its con­trib­u­tors being women, from the field cor­re­spon­dents to the edi­tor’s desk, from the tech­ni­cians to the office employ­ee. JINHA describes itself as “the alter­na­tive to the alter­na­tive”, and works with­out con­ces­sion to its prin­ci­ples, despite the dif­fi­cul­ties caused by its out­look and language.

JIN­HA’s cor­re­spon­dents fol­low events in Turkey as well as in Syr­ia and Irak. The agency plays an impor­tant role, hav­ing been the first to inform that the Rev­o­lu­tion tak­ing place in Roja­va is a process based on women. The agen­cy’s jour­nal­ists are often tar­get­ed for their polit­i­cal stance, as well as for their iden­ti­ty as women.

As exam­ples, Vil­dan Atmaca, cor­re­spon­dent in Van, was arrest­ed for “pub­lish­ing the pho­to of Arîn Mirkan”, a YPG com­bat­ant in Kobanê. Fol­low­ing the lib­er­a­tion ofVil­dan, it was Roj­da Oğuz’ turn, again in Van. Beri­tan Canöz­er was tak­en into cus­tody and jailed for “being too enthu­si­as­tic”. And these are names a few among sev­er­al oth­ers. In par­al­lel to their work in jour­nal­ism, the strug­gle con­tin­ues to defend their col­leagues so they may recov­er their free­dom and their jobs.

In Sin­jar the JINHA cor­re­spon­dents took risks in fol­low­ing the bat­tles. In the Sur neigh­bor­hood of Diyarbakır, Şehrib­an Aslan, was wound­ed to the head by a tear gas can­is­ter thrown by the police. She spent months in inten­sive care at the hos­pi­tal for a brain concussion…

In Cizre, under cur­few, the jour­nal­ists from JINHA did “Peace jour­nal­ism” in full war, in the heart of neigh­bor­hoods cov­ered by sub-machine gun fire and canons. Zehra Doğan cor­re­spon­dent from Nusay­bin, is present­ly impris­onned in Mardin, await­ing her first hear­ing on Novem­ber 9. On Kedis­tan, you will find   an ongo­ing post­card cam­paign in sup­port for Zehra and her friends.

JİNH­A’s prin­ci­ple is that the per­cep­tion of  wom­en’s per­spec­tives must serve as a basis for a bet­ter world, by inform­ing on fem­i­nist out­looks. In so doing, it becomes the voice of women, of those whose life­less bod­ies are exhib­it­ed on the streets, of those who are sub­ject­ed to tor­ture in prison, of those who self-defend, those who fill the streets, those who fight for nature, yelling “Who is the State?” JINHA is the voice of those who fight in the unions, of the women and chil­dren sub­ject­ed to sex­u­al assault, of women vic­tims of mas­cu­line vio­lence, and also of those who fight back against them, but also of the LGBTIs mas­sa­cred, attacked, fight­ing for their pride…

JİNHA can­not be muz­zled” says the press release. “We will con­tin­ue to write, with­out pay­ing atten­tion to what the men will say.” 

JINHA is the voice of women!

Sup­port rush­es in on social media!

Fem­i­nizm Derneği : “We sup­port JİNHA declar­ing it will keep on writin.g #Jin­haY­al­nızDeğildir (JİNHA is not alone)”

İst­anb­ul Fem­i­nist Kolek­tif : “JİNHA is us.”

Erk­to­lia : “JINHA the first wom­en’s agency in the world has been closed down”. #JİNH­Asust­ur­ul­am­az (JİNHA can­not be muz­zled) #Kadın­larınS­esiS­us­tu­ru­la­maz (The voice of women can­not be stopped)” 

Film­mor  (Wom­en’s Film Fes­ti­val) : “Vir­ginia Woolf in 1929. JİNHA 2016. For 100 years, we have been writ­ing ‘with­out pay­ing atten­tion to what men may say’! If you think it is pos­si­ble to ‘close’ this, and abol­ish it”

Kadın­ların Kur­tu­luşu  :“JİNHA who writes ‘with­out pay­ing atten­tion to what men might say’ will con­tin­ue to write thanks to our strug­gle, the wom­en’s strug­gle. ‘We were, we are, we shall be!” »

Mor Çetele : “A decree has closed down JINHA, one of the voic­es of women. You will not be able to shut the voice of women!” 

Fem­i­nist Gün­dem : “#JİNH­Acann­ot be muz­zled because JİNHA makes the voice of the street, the voice of women, resonate.” 

Fil­iz Ker­este­cioğlu (Jurist, fem­i­nist, HDP deputy) : “JİNHA is the voice of women. Our agency where the youngest and most tal­ent­ed jour­nal­ists work is unique across the world. We will nev­er shut up!” 

Per­vin Bul­dan (HDP Deputy, Par­lia­men­tary Vice-Pres­i­dent) : “JİNHA will nev­er shut up. Women will resist and re-own­JİNHA. #JİNH­Asust­ur­ul­am­az (JİNH­Acann­ot be muzzled)”

Kedis­tan offers JINHA its sup­port, and through JINHA, to all oppressed jour­nal­ists and closed down media,

of which the com­plete list fol­lows : Dicle Haber Ajan­sı (DİHA), Jin Haber Ajan­sı (JİNHA), Özgür Gün­dem Gazete­si (İst­anb­ul), Azadiya Welat Gazete­si (Diyarbakır), Yük­seko­va Haber Gazete­si (Hakkari), Bat­man Çağ­daş Gazete­si (Bat­man), Cizre Postası Gazete­si (Şır­nak), İdil Haber Gazete­si (Şır­nak), Güney Expres Gazete­si (Şır­nak), Prestij Haber Gazete­si (Van), Urfa­natik Gazete­si (Urfa), Kızıltepe’nin Sesi Gazete­si (Mardin), Tîroj Der­gisi (İst­anb­ul), Evrensel Kültür Der­gisi (İst­anb­ul), Özgür­lük Dünyası Der­gisi (İst­anb­ul).


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Le petit mag­a­zine qui ne se laisse pas caress­er dans le sens du poil.