📽️🔴 A powerful video message was broadcast during the Newroz celebration in Istanbul today, featuring archival footage of Abdullah Öcalan alongside a one-minute Turkish audio recording from the late 1990s.
🎙️ In the message, Öcalan described Newroz as “a flower breaking through… pic.twitter.com/Y6Sd03RGNW
— MedyaNews (@medyanews_) March 23, 2025
A powerful video message featuring archival footage and audio of Abdullah Öcalan was broadcast to the crowd at Sunday’s Newroz celebrations in Istanbul, offering a moment of reflection and resistance in the absence of a new statement from the imprisoned Kurdish leader.
The one-minute Turkish audio, dating back to the late 1990s before Öcalan’s capture, was shared with the public by the Newroz organising committee. The playing of the video mirrored similar scenes at the Diyarbakır (Amed) Newroz on 21 March. This year, there had been widespread anticipation that Öcalan—held on İmralı Island and in absolute incommunicado detention since March 2021—might be permitted to send a written Newroz message. However, the Turkish government refused to facilitate this, prompting organisers to turn to his historic words.
In the recording, Öcalan describes Newroz as a symbol of renewal and defiance, offering poetic imagery and a powerful political message:
Abdullah Öcalan – Newroz Message (late 1990s)
“May our Newroz be celebrated by all of us.
What is Newroz?
It is the flower that breaks through into daylight.
It is a stance for life.
It is nature opening up to colours.
It is blood flowing into the veins of life.
It is the attempt to green, to blossom, to open.
And in the end, Newroz says this:
No law can possess a power above the law of free life.
The greatest power, the greatest law, is the law of free life.
Therefore, the law of free life must prevail.
For this, I have names I’ve given myself:
One who does not deceive, and cannot be deceived.
One who does not listen to lies, and does not tell lies.
One who does not accept ugliness, and does not sustain or impose themselves as ugly.
One who does not come near to defeat, and does not accept defeat.
On this basis, I celebrate Newroz for all our esteemed people.
I salute you.
I send you my love.”
Tens of thousands, gathered at Istanbul’s Yenikapı Square, observed a moment of silence before erupting into chants of Biji Serok Apo! (Long live the leader Abdullah Öcalan), underlining the continued resonance of Öcalan’s words for the Kurdish community and broader pro-democracy movements.
The symbolic act comes amid renewed debate over Öcalan’s isolation and growing calls for peace negotiations. Political commentators, human rights defenders and Kurdish institutions have described his exclusion from public life as an obstacle to democratic progress and reconciliation.
