Hunger strikes by Kurds will continue despite Ocalan visit: KCK
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Communities Group (KCK) vowed on Tuesday to continue hunger strikes even after Turkey allowed lawyers to visit Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan in Imrali prison after years of being denied access.
On Thursday, a team of lawyers were allowed to visit Ocalan for the first time in eight years. On Monday in Istanbul, lawyers read a statement from Ocalan and his cohorts that addressed the hunger strikers among several other issues in the region, Turkey, Syria, and among Kurds.
Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP Leyla Guven, Kurds abroad, and PKK members have engaged in months-long hunger strikes in protest of the isolation of Ocalan.
The KCK, an umbrella group that encompasses the banned PKK, argued in its statement that the meeting was just “aiming to release pressure.”
“[T]he fact that they were not allowed to take notes during the meeting, the other prisoners were not allowed to see them and that the hunger strikers’ demand to have Leader Apo working and living free hasn’t been met show that this meeting was a one-off event that the government hopes to release public pressure with,” the KCK stated, using Ocalan’s Kurdish nickname of Apo, as he is affectionately known by some followers.
The government permitted the visit “to ease the domestic and foreign pressure created by the resistance to break the isolation,” claimed the KCK, “because this resistance is relevant to all Kurdish people and forces of democracy.”
It further claimed the visit by Ocalan’s brothers or his lawyers doesn’t mean the end of isolation.
“[The] demands of the resistance haven’t been met” and “the hunger strikers have announced that they will continue their resistance with determination,” the KCK stated.
The Kurdish umbrella group asked for people across the world to continue to support the hunger strikers.
“We are calling on the Kurdish people, forces of democracy and all foreign and domestic public to support the resistance’s decision and to increase the struggle to break the isolation,” the KCK stated.
Ocalan, however, through the message he sent out through his lawyers, called for hunger strikers not to endanger their lives.
“Although we respect the resistance of our friends inside and outside prison, they should not take it to the point where it will endanger their health and lead to their death,” read the statement from Monday. “For us, their mental, physical and spiritual health is above everything. Additionally, the most meaningful approach is related to mental and spiritual development.”
The KCK argued: “Leader Apo considers the isolation imposed upon him to be an isolation against the Kurdish people.”
Ocalan had regular guests in 2013, mainly from Kurdish politicians and Turkey’s intelligence agency as part of the fragile peace process.
However with the breakdown of peace process in 2015, he was mostly isolated with the PKK and Turkish government again returning to a state of conflict.
“These analyses that put forth Leader Apo’s stance are primarily a message to the forces of democracy and the peoples of Turkey,” the KCK claimed.
The umbrella group argued that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) dominant government is ultimately responsible for the lives of the hunger strikers because they hold the key to Ocalan’s fate.
“When he says the protests should not reach the level where people lose their lives,” the KCK argued, “he is calling on the government and the perpetrators of this isolation, demanding that they fulfill their responsibility.
“It is the government that will actually end the isolation and meet this demand.”
On Thursday, a team of lawyers were allowed to visit Ocalan for the first time in eight years. On Monday in Istanbul, lawyers read a statement from Ocalan and his cohorts that addressed the hunger strikers among several other issues in the region, Turkey, Syria, and among Kurds.
Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP Leyla Guven, Kurds abroad, and PKK members have engaged in months-long hunger strikes in protest of the isolation of Ocalan.
The KCK, an umbrella group that encompasses the banned PKK, argued in its statement that the meeting was just “aiming to release pressure.”
“[T]he fact that they were not allowed to take notes during the meeting, the other prisoners were not allowed to see them and that the hunger strikers’ demand to have Leader Apo working and living free hasn’t been met show that this meeting was a one-off event that the government hopes to release public pressure with,” the KCK stated, using Ocalan’s Kurdish nickname of Apo, as he is affectionately known by some followers.
The government permitted the visit “to ease the domestic and foreign pressure created by the resistance to break the isolation,” claimed the KCK, “because this resistance is relevant to all Kurdish people and forces of democracy.”
It further claimed the visit by Ocalan’s brothers or his lawyers doesn’t mean the end of isolation.
“[The] demands of the resistance haven’t been met” and “the hunger strikers have announced that they will continue their resistance with determination,” the KCK stated.
The Kurdish umbrella group asked for people across the world to continue to support the hunger strikers.
“We are calling on the Kurdish people, forces of democracy and all foreign and domestic public to support the resistance’s decision and to increase the struggle to break the isolation,” the KCK stated.
Ocalan, however, through the message he sent out through his lawyers, called for hunger strikers not to endanger their lives.
“Although we respect the resistance of our friends inside and outside prison, they should not take it to the point where it will endanger their health and lead to their death,” read the statement from Monday. “For us, their mental, physical and spiritual health is above everything. Additionally, the most meaningful approach is related to mental and spiritual development.”
The KCK argued: “Leader Apo considers the isolation imposed upon him to be an isolation against the Kurdish people.”
Ocalan had regular guests in 2013, mainly from Kurdish politicians and Turkey’s intelligence agency as part of the fragile peace process.
However with the breakdown of peace process in 2015, he was mostly isolated with the PKK and Turkish government again returning to a state of conflict.
“These analyses that put forth Leader Apo’s stance are primarily a message to the forces of democracy and the peoples of Turkey,” the KCK claimed.
The umbrella group argued that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) dominant government is ultimately responsible for the lives of the hunger strikers because they hold the key to Ocalan’s fate.
“When he says the protests should not reach the level where people lose their lives,” the KCK argued, “he is calling on the government and the perpetrators of this isolation, demanding that they fulfill their responsibility.
“It is the government that will actually end the isolation and meet this demand.”