A vigil by the Democratic Kurdish Community in Switzerland has been taking place in front of the UN headquarters in Geneva since 25 January 2021. Every Wednesday, activists stage a protest in front of the United Nations building to demand the release of Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan. The action is carried out as part of the 'Dem dema azadiye' [Time for Freedom] campaign and directed against the isolation of the Kurdish leader on the Turkish prison island of Imrali, the Turkish occupation attacks on Kurdistan, the massacres committed in Kurdish territories and the silence of the UN.

Today’s vigil began with a minute of silence paying tribute to martyrs of the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle, after which Mustafa Altunbaş spoke on behalf of the ‘Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan Committee’.

Altunbaş saluted the international campaign “Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, Political Solution to the Kurdish Question’ launched by the friends of the Kurdish people worldwide on 10 September 2023.

“The system of aggravated isolation and torture executed on our leader for 33 months is against basic human rights and international law. European institutions such as the UN and CPT, which are responsible for protecting human rights as per international law, maintain their silence against this isolation torture. The Kurdish people should enhance the struggle against the policy of isolation which seeks to subjugate the will of the Kurdish people in the person of leader Öcalan,” Altunbaş said.

Speaking after, Tuba Yılmaz, Co-Chair of the Democratic Kurdish Community Centre in Geneva, remembered the Mirabel Sisters and all the women killed by state and male violence, read the appeal of the Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe (TJK-E) on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women’. She called for broad participation in the activities to take place on 25 November.

After the speeches, activists staged a sit-in, chanting the slogan ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi'(Woman, Life, Freedom).