PAJK Prisons Committee Member Eylem Kasim stressed that Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan has torn down Imrali’s walls and shown everybody that space is irrelevant, it is thought and action that matters.

“He has never compromised what he believes in, he has cursed submission. The Imrali resistance is proof that freedom can’t be imprisoned,” said Kasim and added that this is a path to follow for the prisoners of freedom, the people and all the groups who resist.

PAJK Prisons Committee Member Eylem Kasim spoke to the ANF.

The various methods in Turkish prisons are on the rise. What do you think about what is happening in the prisons?

Peoples who have been oppressed and ignored in human history since fascism developed have always fought against fascism to preserve themselves. Against the peoples who refuse to bow down, the hegemonic powers have resorted to torture and massacres pushing the limits of human will to break this resistance. But no method has succeeded against the resistance of oppressed peoples.

The fascistic policies imposed upon the Kurdish people in Turkey are not independent from this hegemonic mindset. The AKP fascism, failing to make the honorable Kurdish people surrender in the mountains, in the plains and in the cities, wants to force them to surrender through detentions, torture and special war behind closed doors.

Over ten thousand women, men and children are in prisons and this exposes the bind the AKP fascism is in, as well as their desperation. They want to achieve their goals through tyranny, imprisonment and oppression and that is why they have turned the whole of Turkey into an open air prison.

Turkey is an open prison for the peoples, and closed prison for the prisoners.

There is also immense pressure on female prisoners, and then there is the female prisoners’ struggle and resistance...

The thousands of revolutionary women in prisons show the misogyny of the statist and monist mindset against the women’s organized structure. The free prisoners who expect nothing from the state or the men, and have brought their own strength and will forth without bowing down to any power have become a nightmare for Erdogan the Dictator. In

Turkey, all women who refuse to enter Erdogan’s system is a potential criminal. AKP fascism wants to imprison women’s struggle for freedom and intimidate them. They confiscate almost every vital right for women who keep their organized structures and refuse to surrender in an effort to intimidate them.

AKP’s misogyny is clearly seen in the increasing rates of rape, harrassment and murder during the AKP governments’ time. Their misogyny peaks at putting the women who resist behind bars. Women’s strongest response to these attacks will be to continue the tradition of women’s struggle and voiding these policies. And they do that with their growing ranks every day.

There are hundreds of sick prisoners in Turkey. Why are their right to treatment taken away, why are they not released and left to die?

Prisons, above all, are places against human nature. In Turkey’s case, it is also impossible to live there. If PKK and PAJK prisoners can stay strong under such negative conditions, it is because of the strength of their thought, their resolve and loyalty to their goals. It is due to their ever growing faith in freedom against oppression and hostile policies.

Many of our friends have great resistance, but physical circumstances and the confiscation of their right to treatment leave many with severe health problems. Wardens know this, but mostly ignore the sick prisoners.

On top of the ignorant prison wardens, the Forensic Institute displays a disdain for law in dragging the process out and most of the time even ignoring it. That is why sick prisoners can’t receive treatment and are left to die.

Even those unable to live under prison conditions are not released and their conditions are pushed to the final stage. Because there is no early intervention, even those who are released from prison lose their lives shortly after, like our friend Selahattin Aytek.

This is beyond unlawful, and it is a deliberate policy that goes against human morality and conscience. They are virtually threatening the prisoners, and the prisoners respond with their will, and expose the injustice in Turkey with their willful stance once more.