Women hold placards (with 3 languages, Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian) reading "stop the weapons", "Women want peace" and "we don't want any war in Sur-Cizre-Silopi", during a march on Istiklal avenue in Istanbul, Turkey, to mark International Women's Day on March 8, 2016. Depo Photos/ Press Association. All rights reserved.The title is not mine. It is the title of an article published on March 17, 2017, just a day after the referendum, in Şüjin, a feminist e-journal produced mainly by Kurdish women.
Thanks to some last-minute procedural manipulations by the governing party, AKP, the YES votes won with a very slight margin, 51.1% to 48.9% and this result has officially changed the political structure of the country from a parliamentary to a presidential system.
The campaign period for the referendum, as well as the referendum itself proceeded under an eight month long "state of emergency." This means to say under heavy police pressure and mass-media censorship, which Erdogan and his AKP callously used to muffle dissenting voices pursuing a NO vote and to amplify pro-Erdogan voices calling for a YES vote.
