The Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan Initiative launched the Freedom for Öcalan Vigil on 25 June 2012 in Strasbourg.

The vigil is now in its tenth year and has reached week 504. A new group of activists from Nuremberg took over the action this week. The group includes Hikmet Gencer, Edip Yalşın and Doğan Dalmış.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Hikmet Gencer said that the "International Conspiracy" developed against the Kurdish people, the Middle East and the oppressed peoples of the whole world, in the person of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan, has been going on for 23 years.

Hikmet Gencer added that isolation has also been going on for 23 years and pointed to the role of European states in the conspiracy by saying that "Europe's hypocrisy has shown itself in this conspiracy." Gencer underlined that the Turkish state maintains isolation, even ignoring its own constitutional law.

Gencer said that "European countries are also parties in crime in this unlawfulness and injustice carried out by the Turkish state against Leader Öcalan" and showed Germany as an example of this complicity.