Jeremy Corbyn, Britain’s former opposition leader and Labour MP, is scheduled to speak at the second annual Abdullah Öcalan conference on 15 February in London hosted by trade unions, the Freedom for Öcalan campaign and the Kurdish People’s Democratic Assembly of Britain.
Speakers from both Europe and Britain are set to campaign for the release of the imprisoned leader of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) include left-wing British MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party MP Hişyar Özsoy, and prominent Kurdish politician, lawyer and human rights activist Osman Baydemir.
Talks will focus on Öcalan’s thought and importance for peace and security in Turkey and the Middle East, his theory of democratic confederalism for “peaceful coexistence in the Middle East”, and the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (Woman, Life, Freedom) slogan, which was produced by the Kurdish movement and gained widespread popularity during the ongoing Iran protests over the death of a young Kurdish woman.
The Kurdish People’s Democratic Assembly of Britain is a grassroots organisation of some 400,000 Kurds living in Britain, which focuses on “stopping the war against the Kurdish people and paving the way for a peaceful solution”.
Freedom for Öcalan is endorsed by 14 major British trade unions, and campaigns for the release of Abdullah Öcalan who has been held under strict isolation in a prison on the isolated İmralı Island for virtually all of the past 24 years, following his 1999 capture by Turkish authorities.
Activists in Turkey and abroad have accelerated campaigns for the PKK founding leader’s freedom as he has been held absolute incommunicado, unable to speak with his family or lawyers or have any contact with the outside world since March 2021.
