The Youth Assembly of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party has announced a long freedom march from Diyarbakir (Amed), the largest city in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey, to Ömerli (Amara), the birthplace of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. The four-day march, spanning over 200 km, will culminate on Öcalan’s birthday, 4 April.
Lorîn Aryen Turgut, a coordinator, made a press statement inviting young people to march under the slogan, ‘We walk towards freedom with a democratic society.’ Participants will march for democracy in Turkey in line with Öcalan’s 27 February ‘Call for Peace and Democratic Society‘ and demand the leader’s release on his 76th birthday.
Stressing that the youth is the “resisting force of society”, Turgut called on all young people to take responsibility as “pioneers of an honourable life”, following Öcalan’s call for political reconciliation between the Kurdish movement and the Turkish state.
DEM Party MPs Ceylan Akça and Beritan Güneş also joined the press briefing, which was read out in Kurdish by Turgut and in Turkish by DEM Party Youth Assembly member Mustafa Yaşodun.
Öcalan’s peace call has “given hope to all oppressed peoples and societies, especially the peoples of Kurdistan and Turkey, and begun a new period of resistance,” the Youth Assembly said.
