The Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F) called on everyone to attend the demonstration to be held in Paris on 2 September to demand the lifting of the isolation and the release of Abdullah Öcalan.

The CDK-F said in a statement: "Imprisoned for more than 24 years in the island of Imrali, the Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan has been held incommunicado for two and a half years now, without any contact with the outside world.

The complete lack of information regarding the situation of Öcalan and his three fellow prisoners – Hamili Yıldırım, Ömer Hayri Konar and Veysi Aktaş – raises growing concerns about their safety and health. Countless requests for visits filed for years by the lawyers and families of Imrali detainees have gone unanswered.

Meanwhile, international institutions are content with a few recommendations which are totally ignored by Ankara. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), the only European body able to visit Turkish prisons, takes pleasure in a lax attitude which encourages Turkey to practice solitary confinement."

The CDK-F added that "this incommunicado detention is a form of serious and continuous torture. In fact, prison isolation is part of the process of destruction of Kurdish identity. Beyond the person of Öcalan, isolation targets all the Kurdish people. Imrali's torture is accompanied by relentless repression inside the country: thousands of Kurdish elected officials, leaders and political activists are held hostage in Turkish jails. And, every day, we are witnessing new arrests in this country where the media are completely muzzled and civil society reduced to nothing."

The CDK-F called on everyone to attend the demonstration in Paris on 2 September. The action will start at 3pm at Place de la République.