Kurdish activists staged a march in the French city of Montpellier to demand freedom for Kurdish people’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, on Saturday evening.

The march kicked off from the Democratic Kurdish Community Centre, with activists chanting the slogan “Bijî Serok Apo” (Long Live Leader Öcalan) and “PKK is the people and the people are here”, and displaying banners of Öcalan and the flag of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).

In a statement after the march, the young activists vowed to continue their actions until the physical freedom of the Kurdish leader is secured.

The Imralı F Type High Security Closed Prison was built specifically for Abdullah Öcalan in February 1999 and has since been operated based on a special status and through special practices.

Under the so-called aggravated execution regime, Abdullah Öcalan and his fellow prisoners, Hamili Yildirim, Ömer Hayri Konar and Veysi Aktaş, have been held under conditions of extraordinary isolation for a long time, 24 years in terms of Öcalan and eight years each in terms of other inmates.

Despite all their attempts, lawyers from the Istanbul-based Asrin Law Office, which represents Abdullah Öcalan and his three fellow prisoners, have not been able to receive even a single sign of life from their clients since 25 March 2021. They could not obtain any information regarding their health status, their detention conditions, their legal situation in 2022. It has been two years that their clients have not been heard from in any way.