The Democratic Kurdish Community Centre in Sydney continues its actions demanding freedom for Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held in aggravated isolation in Imrali Island Prison since his forced departure from Kenya to Turkey as a result of an international conspiracy on 15 February 1999.

Activists organized a boat tour in Sydney Harbour on Sunday as part of the “Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan Now” campaign. The three-hour tour was also supported by Australians.

A statement by the organizing committee said: “The U.S. and European states are afraid of answering the demands of democracy, equality and freedom through dialogue. Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan went to Europe for the resolution of the Kurdish question on the basis of these demands 24 years ago, but was not embraced by the European states, which, furthermore, became a party in the international conspiracy that led to Öcalan’s handover to Turkey. As the Kurdish people, we demand that the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the United Nations (UN) take immediate action to abolish the torture system on Imrali and send a delegation to Imrali.”

The organizing committee also called on the Australian government and NGOs to raise their voices against the Turkish state’s policy of total isolation against Öcalan.