Subscribe here: [ Ссылка ] A group of around 25 Kurdish supporters of Abdullah Ocalan stormed the plenary hall of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Kurdish activists interrupted the meeting chanting to demand the release of Ocalan, founder of the PKK, detained since 1998 in the maximum security prison on the Turkish island of Imrali where he is serving a life sentence. Security members approached to break up the protest, but some activists climbed over the protective windows threatening to throw themselves on the seats of the MEPs. The vice president on duty, Pina Picierno, was forced to suspend the session.
Subscribe here: [ Ссылка ] Around a dozen Kurdish activists launched a protest on Wednesday in the European Parliament on the 24th anniversary of Turkey's arrest of their revered leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The debate session was halted and MEPs left the chamber as the protesters brandished banners bearing Ocalan's image and shouted slogans hostile to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"They are pro-PKK activists," MEP Bernard Guetta told AFP, referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), banned in Turkey and blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in the EU.
Guetta said the protesters were on an upper deck above the Strasbourg chamber, some sitting on a balustrade and dangling their legs above the parliament's floor.
Ocalan is the best-known leader of Kurdish rebellion in Turkey, but was arrested in Kenya by Turkish agents on February 15, 1999 and sentenced to death in June of the same year.
Now 73, his sentence was reduced to life in prison in 2002 and supporters continue to demand his release.
Last week, PKK militants still fighting in Turkey announced a temporary halt to their operations during rescue work after the massive earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.
A group of Kurds interrupted the plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, protesting and demanding freedom for jailed Kurdish politician Abdullah Öcalan on Wednesday (15 February).
Öcalan is the founder of Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK), who has been detained for more than 20 years in Turkey on terrorism charges.
EU lawmakers who were participating in a key debate on the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age were evacuated and the session suspended until further notice.
Protestors shouted “Freedom for Öcalan” and launched some objects into the hemicycle, most likely papers with some written messages, according to a Parliament source who witnessed the event.
On 8 February, a similar protest demanding Öcalan’s release took place in the square in front of the EU Parliament.
The Kurdish issue in Turkey and in the region of Rojava (Northern Syria) is a historical regional problem that has always created deep instability in the heart of the Middle East.
Kurds in Turkey account for around 18% of the total population and the cohabitation between the Turkish government and the Kurds has always been uneasy.
The PKK, founded in 1974, is considered a terrorist organisation by many EU member states due to their controversial practices of protests promoting the Kurdish cause, which included attacks, guerrilla and kidnappings.
In October 2019, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared war on Rojava, the Northern Syria region controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), composed of different ethnic groups with a significant presence of Kurds.
Rojava is known for its innovative implementation of deliberative democracy, called “democratic conferederalism”, a political system based on self-organisation of different councils, which discuss and make decisions on community issues, based on inclusivity of all minorities and a cooperative ecology.
The theoretical aspect of democratic confederalism was invented by Öcalan himself.
Erdogan applies a zero-tolerance policy to the Kurdish question and has used it as a political card in his relations with the EU.
Turkey is currently putting obstacles to Sweden’s bid to join NATO because of the Swedish approach to the Kurdish question, as Stockholm has been rather favourable to the possible self-determination of the Kurds, a major red line for Turkey.
When Turkey started the war with Rojava in 2019, Erdogan weaponised migration, saying that if the EU made any efforts to stop the war, he would open the borders and allow migrants kept in Turkey to access Europe.
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