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Thousands of Kurds protest to support jailed Abdullah Ocalan in Strasbourg  14.2.2011  

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February 14, 2011

STRASBOURG, France,— Thousands of Kurds on Saturday demonstrated in Strasbourg against the imprisonment of banned Kurdistan Worker's Party leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Police estimated that around 15,000 Kurds participated in the demonstration. More than 40,000 Kurds from several European countries have called for a medical examination of the former PKK party leader, serving a life sentence on Imrali, in the Marara Sea off Istanbul.

Demonstrators from Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria expressed their solidarity with 18 Kurds who have been on a hunger strike in Strasbourg for 32 days.

They want an enquiry by the anti-torture committee of the Council of Europe and in independent medical investigation of Ocalan, who was arrested in 1999. The Kurds fear their former leader has been poisoned, which Turkish authorities deny.

Following his capture, a Turkish court sentenced Ocalan to death for separatist activities and the civil war in the southeast of the country.

The sentence was later commuted to life in prison. In 2005 the European Court of Justice ruled that the case against Ocalan as unfair because the rights of the defence had been ignored and recommended new legal proceedings.

Ocalan, is the founder of the outlawed Turkey Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which took up arms for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey (Turkey-Kurdistan). Ocalan had been forced from his long-time home in Syria by Turkish pressure in 1998,
www.ekurd.netembarked on an odyssey through several European countries and ended up in the residence of the Greek ambassador in Nairobi. He was on his way from there to the airport on Feb 15 1999 when he was arrested by Turkish agents and put on a plane to Turkey.

Following the arrest, violent protests by Kurds erupted all over Europe. Ocalan was put on trial on the heavily guarded prison island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life in prison,
www.ekurd.net after Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002. Ocalan was the only prisoner for a decade until new prisoners arrived on November 2009,              

People hold flags and banners during a demonstration of several thousand people from all around Europe asking for convicted PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan's liberation in Strasbourg, eastern France, on February 12, 2011. Thousands of demonstrators protested in support of Ocalan, who was captured on February 15, 1999, and is currently serving a life sentence in Turkey. Photo: Getty Images.


Demonstrators take part in a protest in favour of jailed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan in Strasbourg.  February 12, 2011 Thousands of demonstrators protested in support of Ocalan, who was captured on February 15, 1999, and is currently serving a life sentence in Turkey. Photo: Reuters
after the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) criticised Ankara for violating Ocalan's human rights by keeping him in solitary confinement.  He is allowed only visits from close relatives and his lawyers. 

“Ocalan has a high symbolic value for some Kurds,” experts say.

Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish state in the south east of the country.

But now its aim is the creation an autonomous region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who constitute the greatest minority in Turkey, numbering more than 20 million.

PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees, lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within Turkey,
www.ekurd.netreducing pressure on the detained PKK president, stopping military action against the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish constitution.

PKK demanded to stop military and political operations and to release Kurdish politicians who are unjustly detained. The organization also requested to enable imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's active participation in the process.

Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish language and private Kurdish language courses with the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish politicians say the measures fall short of their expectations.
  
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