Death row inmates Mazlum Dağ and Abdurrahman Er went on an indefinite hunger strike in mid-May to protest their deprivation of rights in Hewlêr prison. While most of the media in the Kurdistan region of Iraq ignore this protest and the majority of political leaders have no understanding of the concerns of the two activists, there is great public sympathy and support for the hunger strikers in Kurdistan and in the Kurdish diaspora. Vigils were held in a number of cities in Switzerland on Saturday night to draw attention to the fate of Dağ and Er.

Er's uncle, Necmettin Er, took part in a meeting organized by the local community centre in front of the train station in Lucerne. He called for sensitivity towards the two death row prisoners.

Mazlum Dağ and Abdurrahman Er are accused of shooting dead the Turkish Vice Consul and secret service officer Osman Köse and two other people in a luxury restaurant in Hewlêr, the capital of the southern Kurdish autonomous region, on 17 July 2019. In February 2020, Dağ and Er were sentenced to death in a show trial before the Criminal Court under pressure from Turkey. In September 2020, the Court of Cassation upheld the death sentences.

"Abdurrahman and Mazlum are protesting the inhumane conditions on death row under the most adverse circumstances," said Er’s uncle, providing information on the health of the hunger strikers. His nephew in particular was particularly weak due to previous illnesses, he said, adding: "He is now unable to walk upright and needs a wheelchair. Mazlum is also getting worse with each passing day. We therefore call on Kurdish organizations and human rights advocates to show solidarity with my nephew and his companion. We call on the government of South Kurdistan to fulfil the demands of Abdurrahman and Mazlum and to end their current detention situation so that worse does not happen. The unjustified allegations against them must be dropped."

Vigil in Bern

The action in Bern was held at Bahnhof Square and started with a minute's silence for those who fell in the Kurdistan freedom struggle.

Burhan Karakoç, co-chairman of the Berne Kurdish Cultural Association, who took the first floor, pointed out that the KDP rules South Kurdistan with a dynasty and said: "Every institution there is in the hands of the Barzanis. One family rules the whole country. Therefore, there is no right or law there. Everything is applied according to the wishes of the Barzanis. If there were laws and there was a Kurdistani vein there, they would not have done this torture to 2 Kurdish youths."

Kurdish politician Nejdet Atalay, said that the “KDP is more royalist than the king” and added that the KDP treated the "two Kurdish prisoners so cruelly and illegally in order to win the favor of the Turkish state."