*Updated at 4:00 pm (CET)
Thousands gathered in Istanbul on Sunday for the “Freedom and Democracy” rally organised by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party.
The rally aims to call for an end to the continued absolute isolation in İmralı Island Prison and to support the “Great Freedom March” launched for the freedom of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held in solitary confinement in İmralı for 25 years and of whom no news has been heard for 36 months.
DEM Party Co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları addressed the crowd, highlighting the widespread impact of the isolation conditions on different sectors of society, including youth, workers and the wider community.
The co-chair called for the closure of İmralı Prison and an end to the isolation system and advocated dialogue, democracy and the protection of human rights as the basis for solving social problems.
Highlighting the long-standing Kurdish issue in Turkey, Hatimoğulları called for peaceful and democratic solutions, criticising past approaches such as language bans and the appointment of trustees as failures. She argued for a solution to the Kurdish question as a step towards peace and unity in the region, suggesting that a solution to the Kurdish question could serve as a model for peace in neighbouring countries.
The participants, many of them dressed in traditional clothes, filled the square in the Esenyurt district with enthusiasm, carrying flags in yellow, red and green and chanting slogans such as “Jin, jiyan, azadî” (Woman, life, freedom) and “Bijî berxwedana zindanan” (Long live the prison resistance).
Vehicles from all of Istanbul’s 39 districts started arriving at the rally in the early hours of the day, contributing to the large turnout. Keskin Bayındır, co-leader of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), emphasised the common effort from all parts of Kurdistan to gather in Istanbul for freedom and underlined the struggle for Kurdish freedom all over the world. He also referred to the ongoing hunger strikes in prisons. Bayındır strongly called for an end to the isolation of Öcalan and signalled him as the key figure for the solution of the Kurdish question.
Politicians and representatives of democratic mass organisations who participated in the “Great Freedom March”, which started on 1 February in Kurdish-majority regions of Turkey, attended the rally. They greeted the crowd together with Kurdish mothers, who were holding a Justice Vigil with similar demands, and amplified the calls for Öcalan’s freedom and the solution of the Kurdish question with chants that echoed throughout the square.
