Berlin, Goettingen (epd). Human rights activists have called on Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) to stand up for women in the northern Syrian region of Afrin in accordance with the guidelines she has presented for feminist foreign policy. “Please condemn the Islamist violence against the women and girls of Afrin, which Turkey started and continues to support with its illegal invasion,” demanded the activists of the Göttingen-based Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) in a letter addressed to Baerbock. According to the organization, around 50 people took part in a vigil in front of the Foreign Office on Thursday.
As a spokesman for the society told the Evangelical Press Service (epd), a ministry representative received the letter in the afternoon. When asked by epd, the Federal Foreign Office said that the principles of feminist foreign policy also apply to difficult and complex crisis contexts, such as the one that has been going on in Syria for the past twelve years. However, the local conditions there continued to severely restrict the Federal Foreign Office’s scope for action.
The reason for the vigil was the upcoming fifth anniversary of the occupation of the Kurdish region by Turkish troops on Saturday (March 18). Before that, women in the region lived comparatively freely and independently, the letter to the Foreign Minister says. As a result of the occupation, the Islamist militias acting on behalf of Turkey enforced Sharia law, which grants women practically no rights. In addition, women would be raped, murdered and kidnapped.
The human rights activists called on Baerbock to receive the former president of Afrin’s self-government, the Alevi Kurd Hevi Mustafa, in Berlin with a delegation of women from Afrin. The feminist foreign policy announced at the beginning of March must not degenerate into lip service.