Every year on 9 October, Kurds and supporters of the Kurdish freedom movement rally around the world to protest against what they believe to be an international plot against Öcalan, the founding leader of the PKK, and his 25 years in prison.
In 1998, Turkey threatened Syria with war, forcing Öcalan to leave Syria in the midst of a unilateral ceasefire by the PKK. On 9 October 1998, Ocalan set off on a journey to Europe to promote a political solution to the Kurdish question. He was captured and taken to Turkey four months later, on 15 February 1999.
As the anniversary of 9 October approaches, Kurds and their allies across Europe organised rallies and marches on Saturday in response to the call of the European Kurdish Women’s Movement to demand öcalan’s freedom.
Protests were held in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Rennes and Marseille in France, Copenhagen in Denmark, Sydney in Australia and 12 different centres in Germany.
Those who spoke at the events underlined the resistance of öcalan in İmralı during his 25 years of imprisonment and the hope he brought to the Kurdish and Middle Eastern people. “The conspiracy has not succeeded; Rojava is the proof of this,” they declared.
The demonstrators called for Ocalan’s freedom, highlighting his 25 years of imprisonment and his 31 months of incommunicado detention.
The demonstrators expressed their anger over the silence of the international community in the face of his continued isolation in İmralı Island Prison and Turkey’s intensified military attacks on North and East Syria.
Stressing that the Turkish government’s attacks on Syrian Kurds are not separate from the continued isolation on İmralı Island, the demonstrators called for continuous activism until Ocalan’s release.
On Tuesday, the anniversary of 9 October will be commemorated with a press conference led by French institutions in front of the European Parliament in Brussels.
