Global support for imprisoned Kurdish leader and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question

From 10 October, elected officials, local governments, parties and movements, unions, civil society organizations, intellectuals, and others have come together in a global effort to front the global campaign "Freedom for Öcalan, A Political Solution for Kurdistan", writes Professor Kariane Westreheim.

Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdish leader who is compared with Nelson Mandela, is seen by millions of Kurds as their legitimate political representative. When he was forced to leave his headquarters in Syria on 9 October 1998, he set out on an odyssey to find a haven where he could work on a road map to solve the Kurdish question in a peaceful way.

It didn't work out that way. Öcalan was abducted in an international intelligence operation and sent to Turkey on 15 February 1999 under particularly degrading conditions. He has been imprisoned for 24 years on the remote island of Imrali in the Bosporus Sea where he has been subjected to severe torture and neglect. For nearly three years now no one has seen or heard from him. What is happening in Imrali can only be speculated, but there are reasons to fear for his life and health.

The focus of the campaign is the release of Öcalan as a prerequisite to the beginning of a new peace process in Turkey and the wider region. However, the most immediate demand is to bring an end to the total isolation that Ocalan has been subject to for almost three years.

The campaign brings together elected officials, local governments, parties and movements, unions, civil society organizations, intellectuals, and others. As a kick-off for the campaign, 74 press conferences are held across Europe, in Latin America, South Africa, Kenya, Japan, India, Bangladesh, East Timor, the Philippines, and Australia. However, the main press conferences will be held in front of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Paris, Vienna, Brussels and Berlin. The number of press conferences is symbolic and points to Öcalan who turned 74 this year.

The problems surrounding the Kurdish question, including the inhumane imprisonment of Öcalan are among the world's most combustible unresolved conflicts. The conflicts and the political instability deriving from the Turkish Republic’s violent denial of fundamental civil and political rights to 20 million Kurdish citizens—has cost tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions, and empowered hardline nationalists, religious fundamentalists, and autocrats worldwide. It is linked to many of the most serious regional and global challenges impacting the lives and well-being of millions—occupation, racism, the oppression of women, religious intolerance, economic exploitation, and the destruction of the environment.

In the same way that Öcalan is held down by force under President Erdoğan’s iron fist, the entire Kurdish people is held oppressed deprived of their most basic human and political rights such as the right to life, fair legal treatment, mother tongue education, freedom of expression, as well as freedom of assembly and protest.

One main reason that the Kurdish question remains unresolved is silence and lack of political action from central organisations such as the EU, UN, US and NATO. Because of Turkey's geopolitical significance, confrontation is avoided which gives Turkey the green light to continue its policy of repression, armed attacks against the Kurds, including with chemical weapons against Kurdish areas and settlements within its own state borders, and on the territory of other states such as Iraq and Syria.

Erdoğan thinks he can only realize his neo-Ottoman goal, which is a Sunni Islamic dictatorship, by eliminating Kurdish resistance and isolating Öcalan's ideas. He regards himself as the new caliphate of all radical Islamic groups. Erdoğan showed his true face through his active support to Daesh during yearlong attacks against the Kurds.

Today he does the same. With his war against the Kurds, Erdoğan creates new routes of refugees to Europe. At the same time, he blocks energy routes to Europe which causes higher energy prices. Erdoğan encourages Turks living abroad to act against those citizens who think differently in European societies. If his war against the Kurds and their political vanguard continues, Erdoğan is damaging not only the Kurdish regions but also the interests of Europe and daily normal European life.

A political solution to the Kurdish question will not only bring stability, but it will also democratize Turkey itself. That is why the campaign for Öcalan’s release and a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question is so important for the people of Europe.

The main message of the campaign “Freedom for Öcalan, A Political Solution for Kurdistan” is that resolution of the conflict can only be achieved when Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan is allowed to meet with his lawyers and family and, ultimately, freed under conditions that allow him to play a role in finding a just and democratic political solution to Turkey's decades-old Kurdish conflict.

Professor Kariane Westreheim is the chairwoman for EUTCC (EUTurkey Civic Commission).

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