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In a camp for Kurdish refugees in the town of Lavrion, Greece, a hunger strike was launched against the isolation of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan and in support of the hunger strikers in prisons across Turkey.
Berivan Karakoyun is one of the hunger strikers in Lavrion. She is 53 years old and has been residing in the camp for one year. Having been in prison for a total of 15 years from 1993 until the last months of 2019, Karakoyun had to leave Turkey. Having been sentenced to 40 more years in prison, she was forced to seek assylum in Europe.
For many years, she was the Siirt Representative of the Association for Solidarity and Culture with Families Who Lost Their Relatives (MEYA-DER).
Karakoyun, who has been a part of numerous hunger strike protests before launched against the isolation of Öcalan during the years she was in prison, said, “The struggle has no limits.”
She is on a hunger strike once again with similar demands, this time she raises the struggle in Greece.
Call for the CPT
Stating that their aim for the strike is the freedom of Öcalan as well as ending the isolation, Karakoyun said, “It is not enough for Öcalan to meet with his family and his lawyers only. Öcalan has been isolated for 22 years, an inhumane and immoral isolation is being implemented on İmralı.”
“The CPT met with Öcalan many times. It says it is an independent organisation but it does not fulfil its role,` she noted as she criticised the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).
“Women will continue to struggle”
Emphasizing that they will continue the struggle against isolation, Karakoyun said:
“Women continue to struggle all over the world today like Leyla Qasim, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, Leyla Şaylemez, Sêvê Demir, Pakize Nayır and Fatma Uyar.
Öcalan says, ‘Slavery started with women, so freedom should rise at the hands of women.’ This thought has spread all over the world. For this reason, we must embrace Öcalan’s ideas and continue the struggle.” she concluded.
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