Ezidi MP Feleknas Uca awarded Clara Zetkin Prize

BERLIN, Germany (Kurdistan24) – An Ezidi (Yazidi) Member of Parliament in Turkey received the Clara Zetkin women’s prize awarded by Germany’s left party.

Feleknas Uca, a Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP, was the recipient of the seventh women’s prize offered by DIE LINKE, the socialist democratic party of Germany.

A photo of Uca protecting another woman during police intervention in a Diyarbakir protest went viral on social media. She has been active on the political scene since 1999.

Born in Germany to Ezidi immigrant parents, Uca was elected to the European Parliament coming fifth out of six places on the Party of Democratic Socialism national at age 22.

In 2014, Uca who had maintained contact with Turkey’s political scene resettled in Diyarbakır, the de facto Kurdish capital of Turkey.

In 2015, she was nominated by the HDP and Turkish Higher Electoral Board to the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Clara Zetkin was a German communist who was involved with the Socialist movement in Germany since the 1870s.

Following a proposal from Zetkin, March 8 of that year marked the first International Women’s Day.

March 8 was originally known as International Working Women’s Day. Its roots lie in the socialist rather than feminist struggle of the early 20th century.

Although a fervent campaigner for women’s rights and universal suffrage, Zetkin believed socialism was the only movement that “could truly serve the needs of working-class women.”

Moreover, she argued feminism was the preserve of the upper and middle-classes.

International Women’s Day is celebrated annually to press gender equality demands. 

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany