pc 9 maggio - Appello per la solidarietà ai prigionieri politici in sciopero della fame in Turchia nord kurdistan

Demands of Hunger Strikers are Just and Legitimate, So is the Solidarity!

On 7 November 2018, an elected MP of the Turkish parliament from Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Leyla Güven, initiated a historical step for the struggle against fascism in Turkey and North Kurdistan while she was being kept in Diyarbakır prison as a political prisoner. On that day, she declared in front of the judge that she will no longer attend to the courts and start an indefinite hunger strike action with a demand of lifting the total isolation imposed on Abdullah Öcalan, the founding leader of the Kurdish liberation movement, who has been in prison for 20 years.

This step has been put forward under such political circumstances, where any voice against the policies of the Erdogan-dictatorship are heavily suppressed and responded with mass detentions. It has sparked a fire of hope in terms of awakening wide masses, which are under suppression but have not actually yield to the fascist regime yet, and mobilize them towards a resisting line. In this sense, the purity of the resistance brings about a defiant stronghold with the embodiment in a Kurdish woman at the most sensitive point of the Turkish state, at the sharpest edge of the political struggle.

The hunger strike resistance of Leyla Güven, firstly, echoed outside the prisons with the participation of various activists in Turkey, Kurdistan, Europe and Canada. Then, played an important role to swiftly consolidate the revolutionary vanguard forces after it spread to the whole prisons in Turkey and North Kurdistan. Now, more than 7000 political prisoners are on indefinite hunger strike since the 1^st of March, including not only those from the Kurdish liberation movement, but also the communist prisoners as well. Their legitimate demand is quite simple and clear: apply what is written on the laws!

Öcalan has been kept under inhumane conditions in solitary at a special prison on an island since he was detained in 1999. He has been considered and treated like a war hostage rather than being a political prisoner, as his basic rights have mostly been seized by the Turkish state’s arbitrariness. Along with preventing his lawyers to meet with him since 2011, the imprisonment conditions have been turned into a total isolation mostly by 2015, as the Turkish state terminated the peace negotiation process with PKK. Apart from letting his brother to have a short visit only for two times during these 4 years, the government does not allow Öcalan to have any contact with the world behind the Imrali island; no letters, no telephone, etc.. According to article 3 of the European Human Rights Convention, nobody must be subjected to torture or inhumane punishment or treatment, such as total isolation. European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) should have acted a long time ago. However, the European governments, institutions, media are remaining silent about the legitimate demands of Leyla Güven and all hunger strikers. Their position means nothing but supporting the Erdogan-dictatorship.

In fact, this total isolation policy on Öcalan represents what Erdogan-dictatorship impose on the whole society, in particular, on the Kurdish people and the progressive, democratic, revolutionary ranks of Turkey and North Kurdistan. In a country ruled by a one-man dictatorship based on a chauvinistic oppression, the life of those who stand beyond the borders of this fascist atmosphere is tried to be degraded only to a biological activity. What the dictatorship needs and gives effort to create is a society consist of isolated bodies which are deprived of their basic cultural, intellectual, political, humane rights. This is what the hunger strikers are fighting against at the expend of their own lives!

In this regard, although the demand is as concrete as its legitimacy about the isolation condition of prisoners on behalf of Öcalan, the growing resistance claiming this demand represents a general stance against the intensifying fascist siege of Erdogan-dictatorship that strangles the whole society. As Özkan Özdemir from the European Confederation of the Oppressed Immigrants (AvEG-Kon), who has been on indefinite hunger strike since the April, 1, states: “ The basic rights have one by one eliminated and the country has become some kind of an open-prison as a whole. Moreover, the state terror on progressive and revolutionary forces with continuous detentions and torture, social polarization, femicides, sexual abuse and rape on children, nature plunder and militarist aggression that we face in Turkey are all reflections of this isolation policy. (…) Now, the indefinite hunger strike resistance is not an issue only of hundreds, but a socialized reality including both inside and outside the prisons. Strengthening the general resistance from this stronghold have a key role to overthrow fascism and its isolation policy. Considering the fact that thousands of people have gathered around this resistance line, we feel no doubt that our struggle will sooner or later end up with victory.”

Now, those who love the life so much that they can die for it, are laying their bodies on hunger in order to preserve an honorable life for everyone. Starting from Leyla Güven, the health condition of these thousands of fire bearers have already passed the critical stage. As for the progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces around the world, the struggle against isolation must be viewed as part of a larger struggle of humanity against fascism. Despite a total suppression against their honorable action, their voice should be embraced and raised all around the world. Give shoulder to the hunger strikers; the isolation must be stopped, there is not other way!