HRS members, joined London’s impactful Women’s March, advocating for education rights and highlighting global struggles against gender-based violence and injustice. Human Rights Solidarity (HRS) marked International Women’s Day on March 8 with its annual demonstration, joining forces with the Million Women Rise collective in London’s Great March. This year, the HRS Women’s Rights Committee spotlighted the critical issue of education access while amplifying the voices of women globally enduring violence and injustice particularly Afghan girls barred from schooling. Asiye Betul, a representative of the committee, delivered a stirring poetic address at Trafalgar Square, articulating the systemic oppression faced by women in regions worldwide.

Renowned as one of the largest and most impactful women’s rights gatherings globally, London’s annual march is a women-led initiative backed by diverse organizations and individuals nationwide. Participants from varied cultural, religious, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds united to condemn gender-based violence and inequality. Chants, banners, and songs echoed calls for justice, weaving a tapestry of resistance and solidarity.

This year’s demonstration kicked off at Oxford Street, London’s bustling shopping hub, and culminated at Trafalgar Square. Thousands marched for two hours along the 3-kilometer route, blending drumbeats, slogans, and a festive yet resolute atmosphere. Protestors demanded safer public spaces free from harassment, homes liberated from violence, and workplaces grounded in equity and dignity.

The HRS Women’s Rights Committee contributed a striking visual protest to the march. A delegation of 20 members staged a symbolic act highlighting Afghanistan’s education ban and the universal right to learning. Volunteers carried a 120×60 cm chained book model emblazoned with “Education” and “Women’s Rights,” while others wore miniature chained books as pendants. Their chants advocating education as freedom resonated alongside messages of global solidarity against gender-based oppression.

At the Trafalgar Square rally, speakers shed light on struggles faced by women in conflict zones like Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Iran, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Representing HRS, Asiye Betul recited an original poem decrying injustices from Turkey to global fronts. In a powerful climax, the chains binding the oversized book model were shattered, unveiling a hidden proclamation: “Denying education is denying freedom” a bold reminder of liberation’s inseparable tie to knowledge.

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NOTE: Here is the poem written and read by Asiye Betul:

What does my liberation look like?
Does it look like your laws, your wars, your rules?
Does it look like my body dissected by your schools?
Does it wear my face, does it speak my name?
Or is it just another mask for more of the same?

You look at me,
The barbarian other, veiled in ignorance,
beneath your supremacy, Veiled beneath your pity,
Telling me I need saving, while your hands are busy
Writing rules for my oppression, and laws that push me,
Across your borders, across humanity.

But? Here in Britain, who cleans your homes? Who raises your child?
Who wipes the tables where your rich sit and smile?
Migrant women in kitchens, in hospitals, in care,
The most invisible labour, lowest paid hours.
You say “go back,” but where do they go?
To the wreckage your empire left long ago?
Does your liberation reach asylum hotels, Home Office flats?
Where the right to belong is always too late?

What about Gaza? Where mothers dig graves,
Newborns breathe gas instead of air,
Women give birth in rubble, where life is death
You mourn your wars, count your dead,
While my sisters’ bodies are just headlines instead.
Where is your liberation without Palestinian women?

I am a Turkish woman,
and If it were up to me,
I would not know the name of the women murdered,
on the streets, in homes, in silent hours,
I would not know the names of those drowned crossing rivers,
If it were up to me, I would not have known exile nor borders,
nor so many women locked behind iron doors.
But I know Gulten Sayin and the pain of a son’s death,
I grew up seeing the face of Ozgecan on the internet,
I know the names of a thousand others,
Women buried in silence, in cells, in water.
My aunts, my sisters, my grandmothers.
May oppressors burn in their indifference.
My liberation without theirs is nothing but betrayal.

We’re here to speak about Afghan women,
So let me get started,
Because liberation without Afghan sisters is liberation denied.
Women doctors, women judges,
Women teachers, women scholars,
Now women locked, women silenced,
Women erased– for once I’d like to say women and not violence
Your armies came, your armies left,
And with them, their futures. That’s theft!
Knowledge is power, and women’s power you fear,
A girl with a book is a threat too near.
A girl writing is a threat,
A girl reading,
walking,
breathing
is a threat.
Crumble in your fear,

To hell with your instructions.
Tell me what to do with my ovaries.
Tell me how to democratise.
Tell me why covering my body is oppression,
But bombing mine is not.
Tell me how to speak, how to look, how to walk,
Is my accent just right? Am I dressed unprovocative enough?
Tell me what my freedom looks like,
How else will you humanise me?
Draw me a map to my own liberation,
Then burn it before I arrive.
Because your freedom was never for me,
It was never for the women in cages,
The Women suffering from your own wars,
The women in rubble, the women in exile,
women in schools turned to graves,
women across borders, women crossing channels
women who fix, wash, and clean your flannels.
And if your liberation is not for them,
Then it was never liberation at all.

UDHR guides empathy’s transformative power through principles of dignity. Realizing this vision begins with recognizing the shared humanity among us. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt found herself chairing a United Nations commission tasked with an immense challenge – defining fundamental human rights protections so the global community could unite to prevent future atrocities. Roosevelt later recounted, “We were primarily concerned with extricating humankind from the savagery and suffering which had characterized the war years. We aimed to lift human rights to the level of world conscience.” On December 10th, 1948, after tireless debates, negotiations, and revisions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was finally adopted by the UN General Assembly. This year marks the 75th anniversary of that revolutionary moment – emerging from the embers of global conflict to articulate innate freedoms no government can deny its people, regardless of race, colour, religion, sex or status.

As we commemorate this significant anniversary, reflecting more deeply on the fundamental basis for human dignity and rights proclaimed in the UDHR is fitting. What makes us human and gives rise to inherent equality and liberty? Human beings’ capabilities can be brought together under two general characteristics. On the one hand, humans are natural beings; on the other, they are rational beings. It is observed that the basis of their birth, growth, development and activities within the limits of the universe stems from these two aspects. As natural beings, it is understood that humans, like all other beings, exist in time and space and are subject to the laws of nature. Within the natural laws, humans are also subject to the motions of generation, corruption, and extinction intrinsic to nature through the aspect they possess from their creation. By rational beings it meant that humans materialized in this realm of natural beings, got to know, made laws freely within nature, and enforced them.

The point that needs to be concisely expressed here is that the human desire to know and make is a fundamental feature of human nature that can never be hindered. Knowing and driving are the most basic human rights. Any external intervention into the human abilities to know and make means denying human existence and being. In this sense, being human is in and of itself a right and reality.

On the other hand, a human finds the state we call freedom in the depths of his soul. The general term we use to express meanings like being free, independent, capable, able to implement, pure, noble-spirited, and unhindered in motion is “liberty”. The human who says “I exist too” and “I also have a place and meaning in existence” demonstrates that he is free primarily by becoming conscious of his existence and displaying it. Freedom liberty is the state of a human exhibiting his essence unrestrainedly and freely without being subject to any restriction. Freedom is a state of independence. This state characterizes the human being devoid of any coercion, limitation, or external pressure and denotes the power to act freely, which a human possesses by virtue of being human.

The concept of freedom is used as the equivalent of the concept of liberty. The state of thinking or behaving without being subject to any restraint or coercion, not being conditional on anything, and human deciding based on his own will and thought, independent of any external influence, is defined as freedom.

Freedom characterizes the area of independence of the individual. In this sense, freedom describes “not harming others”. Unlimited freedom would lead to an unfree situation, as it would limit the rights of others. In this regard, while our freedom limits the freedom of others, the freedom of others also limits our freedom.

External intervention in the exercise of rights and freedoms is inconceivable. However, the exercise of the rights and liberties also has a limit. For example, one does not have the freedom to recklessly endanger others or cause them harm, as that infringes upon their own rights and freedoms. The abuse of the rights and liberties cannot be permitted.

There is an intertwined relationship between the concepts of freedom and rights. However, while the concept of freedom expresses a more general and abstract state, the idea of rights characterizes a more concrete and specific situation. Freedom is a right that is innate to all individuals. However, not every right can be categorized as freedom. Freedom is the common origin of all rights, while rights are the legal powers granted by law to individuals in order to realize freedoms. Freedoms are “being able to do”. Rights are “to want.”

Human rights are inconceivable without freedom. The concepts of rights and freedoms are also closely related to the idea of equality. Equality and freedom are two concepts that complement each other. The idea of equality is often used together with the concept of freedom. The path to freedom passes through equality, and social order and individual freedom are achieved to the extent that freedoms are enjoyed equally.

Freedom cannot be transferred to another nor avoided. Using things that harm people is not freedom. There is rational freedom; however, no one has the freedom to eliminate the freedoms of others. For example, the freedom to restrict voting rights or access to healthcare directly inhibits the freedoms of certain groups. Benefiting from freedoms is achieved through knowledge. Ignorant people cannot benefit from their rights and freedoms to the necessary extent. Misusing rights and freedoms leads to their deprivation. Ultimately, the freedom to destroy freedoms contradicts the premise of liberty itself and is unacceptable in a just society aimed at empowering all individuals.

Thinking is a mind-based process where a causal relationship is established between events. Freedom of thought refers to people’s ability to access information and ideas freely, not being prosecuted for their thoughts and opinions, and being able to openly express, defend and communicate their thoughts and opinions to others without restriction. What is meant by freedom of thought is that individuals can freely express their perspectives and beliefs. Considering the essential role this freedom plays in enabling people to comprehend and exercise other liberties, freedom of thought has been given a superior and privileged status compared to other liberties.
It is human’s actions and creations that make the world meaningful. Humans are as valuable as the extent to which they work, produce, and share their unique gifts and talents. For example, great thinkers and inventors throughout history who shared their breakthrough ideas and technologies fundamentally shaped civilization. When confronted with adverse situations, humans will never relinquish their willpower and will respect all humanity’s universal rights and freedoms.

Throughout history, we have witnessed dominant worldviews applying pressure on minority perspectives, often attempting to assimilate or oppress those holding different viewpoints. Sources of such discriminatory attitudes include pessimism, jealousy, anger, and the conditioned assumption that one’s worldview must be the most correct. For instance, the oppression of religious minorities under various theocracies demonstrates this tendency for a dominant majority to perceive minority belief systems as threatening. However, a person carrying the joy of life would be tolerant and understanding towards other worldviews. One who has lost this sense of meaning might develop a pessimistic, hostile, and aggressive posture toward different perspectives. Essentially, upholding freedom of thought requires respecting a diversity of viewpoints.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, crafted in a spirit of convergence, not surrender, emerged from a collective conviction that human dignity hinges on equal empowerment. As one of its chief architects famously proclaimed, ‘Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.’

Today, we find ourselves inhabiting those ‘small places’ where rights and respect face daily scrutiny. When tensions arise between groups with divergent perspectives or experiences, we can draw inspiration from the UDHR’s emphasis on conscience over coercion, embracing dialogues that seek understanding rather than coercion. Truth and reconciliation commissions, for instance, have endeavoured to mend divides by bringing conflicting parties together through empathetic discourse.

Progress, like the path towards universal human rights, is a winding, arduous road, simultaneously upholding individual liberty and collective belonging through endeavours and communities that foster transparency alongside marginalized voices long silenced.

On this anniversary, the UDHR’s early champions would likely advocate not for self-congratulatory acclaim for past achievements but for an honest reckoning with the arduous journey ahead to elevate human rights to the cornerstone of universal principles within every society.

Empathy, not conformity, is the path to a more just world where all individuals can exercise their freedoms. The UDHR’s principles of dignity and understanding provide a roadmap for unlocking the transformative power of empathy. Realizing this vision starts with recognizing the humanity that binds us all.