After the raids carried out by police on Monday morning in Heilbronn and Esslingen, Kurdish politician Abdullah Öcalan and artist Mazlum Dora were taken into custody. Activists on Tuesday gathered in Stuttgart city center to protest the repression with the slogan “Freedom for all political prisoners”. In a speech, the co-chairman of the Kurdish umbrella organization FCK (Federasyon a Civakên Kurdistani, Federation of Kurdish Societies), Sait Öztürk, called for an end to the policy of criminalization and declared that the repression would not intimidate them.

The rally was organised by the Kurdish Confederation KON-MED (Konfederasyona Civakên Kurdistaniyên li Almanya) which said in a statement: “Kurdish villages, mountains and valleys are being bombed with weapons made in Germany. The federal government is continuing its dirty relations with the fascist Turkish state and its criminalization of the Kurdish institutions in Germany."

The Federal Prosecutor had Abdullah Öcalan - who bears the same name as the PKK founder, who has been imprisoned in Turkey for 22 years - arrested in Heilbronn on 7 May on the basis of a warrant from the Federal Court of Justice. He is accused of having been a member of a "terrorist" organization abroad and of having been responsible for various "PKK" areas, including Darmstadt, Mannheim and Saarbrücken, since August 2019.

Artist Mazlum Dora was arrested in Esslingen on the same charge. In the course of the investigation against him, based on the decision of the Higher Regional Court Stuttgart on 4 May, the apartment of a friend of the artist was searched. Mazlum Dora is accused of having worked for the "PKK area" Heilbronn from mid-July 2019.

Last Friday, activist Mirza B. was arrested in Nuremberg as allegedly responsible for the PKK. Sait Öztürk's apartment in Heilbronn was searched in 2019.