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The prison hunger strike in Turkey reaches to its 155rd day with its demands to end the harsh prison isolation conditions of Abdullah Öcalan, along with demands to end human rights violations in the prisons.
As a result of the response to rumours spread on social media, Abdullah Öcalan and his brother Mehmet Öcalan spoke breifly on the phone on 25 March. However, the phone call was reportedly cut. Reactions are still continuing for Abdullah Öcalan’s right to a phone call and the applications of lawyers to visit the prison are some of the main demands.
Eyşe Efendi, the assembly co-chair of the Institution of Families Martyrs of the Euphrates Region spoke to Jin News regarding the isolation of Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan and the oppression of political prisoners and the Kurdish people. “We have no other way but resistance and we will resist,” she said.
”The isolation is getting worse day by day. Until now, no one has met with Reber Apo [she refers to Abdullah Öcalan as ‘reber’ which means ‘leader’ in Kurdish] The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) did not make any statement after the meeting with our leader. For this reason, it is an international isolation, not just an isolation imposed by Turkey,” Efendi said.
She added: ”Today, thousands of people are relentlessly resisting to break this isolation. If today all international states remain silent to this oppression despite all this resistance, we will resist in different ways. We must now change the way we act and fight against states. After 106 years since the Armenian Genocide, America and one or two states recognised the genocide. How many years should pass for the crimes against Kurds to be recognized?”
Not only in Turkey, hunger strikes spread to Maxmur Camp in Iraq and Lavrio Camp in Greece. Eşreg Öz, who was in the 22nd group of the hunger strike in Lavrio lost his life on Tuesday, 26 April as a result of a heart attack.
Eyşe Efendi also highlighted the critical situation after this recent death. “We follow the developments in the hunger strike very closely. Many of our friends lost their lives. The resistance in the prisons is affecting the Kurdish people. It hurts the conscience of the people who resist for freedom and justice. Our agenda should be focused on the resistance in prisons and the physical freedom of Öcalan,” she said.
Amidst all the pain and suffering, Kurds have no option but to resist, according to Eyşe Efendi, the mother of one of the first martyrs to fall in the Rojava Revolution, Sehid Servan. “We have no other way than resistance. They will not be able to break us with their political interests. We are a people who have lost thousands of martyrs,” she said.
