Kurdish women raise flags bearing the portrait of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan as they demonstrate in the Lebanese capital Beirut's Downtown district in solidarity with women-led protests in Iran sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on Oct. 9, 2022. (Credit: Anwar Amro/EURO/AFP)
BEIRUT — The Kurdish community in Lebanon on Sunday organized a sit-in in front of one the United Nations offices in Riad al-Solh square, Beirut, condemning the death of Mahsa Amini, originally Kurdish, who died while in Iran's police custody, the state-run National News Agency reported.
The death of the 22-year-old woman while in the custody of Iran's morality police has ignited three weeks of nationwide unrest in Iran and solidarity sit-ins across the world.
On behalf of the Nowruz Cultural Association in Lebanon, Hanan Othman said that "women and all segments of society can no longer be severed .... We support women's struggles for liberation in Iran, and we condemn the killing and targeting of women," Othman added. "We say no to killing life."
On Sunday, Othman also criticized the Turkish government, condemning "the ongoing Turkish violations against Kurdish people and their constant targeting of women leaders," in reference to imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). "We call on international organizations and the United Nations to put pressure on the Turkish state to stop their brutal practices,” Othman said.
One week ago, several dozen protesters gathered at the National Museum in Beirut to show solidarity with Iranian women following the death of Amini. "Women, life, freedom" and "Death to the dictator," female protesters chanted, in reference to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.
One of the protesters explained: "It is not about the hijab as much as it is about women’s right to choose." The Iranian government requires women to wear headscarves in public, a measure put in place following the 1979 revolution which saw the country come under religious clerical rule.
"We are against tyranny and oppression, not against the hijab," protesters in Beirut chanted last Sunday. "Give women their right to choose, it's time for men to stop telling women what to do, what to wear, who to love."