Activists of LUnA (university collective of Làbas) took part in the international campaign for the freedom of Abdullah Ocalan at Làbas Bologna.
At the end of the event, an activist of the collective read a press statement about their action, receiving warm support from the young participants at the event.
The statement released by Collective LunA includes the following:
"October 9th is a painful and important date for the Kurdistan Liberation Movement. On that day in 1998, the Syrian state, at the request of Türkiye, decided to revoke the political refugee status and expel the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan from its territory. It sentenced him to exile, which led to his arrest in Kenya on 15 February 1999 and his transfer to a maximum-security prison, where he is still imprisoned in a state of total isolation contrary to international law and Turkish law itself. On the occasion of the ten days of mobilization for the “Freedom for Öcalan, a Political solution for Kurdistan", we, activists of the LUnA (Laboratorio Universitario di Autogestione), thought it was appropriate to re-put the attention of the university area on the prison condition of Öcalan and the Kurdish people. In addition to being a political leader, in fact, Öcalan is also an important theorist and his political vision, called "democratic confederalism", envisages overcoming the nation-state in favor of models of democratic self-organisation from below, based on the pillars of ecology, freedom of women, equality and peaceful coexistence between peoples. This theory is the basis of the political action that is expressed daily inside and outside our spaces and, for this reason, our fight in support of Öcalan has a long history, and we strongly believe that it cannot be overshadowed.
Kurdistan is a territory divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran and the Kurdish people are denied their possibility of self-determination and expression of their culture and identity in all the different states, especially in Turkey. Öcalan's vision, abandoning the goal of Kurdish independence in favor of democratic confederalism of peoples, opened an infinite field of potential for a political solution for Kurdistan and its people, a people who have been waiting for over 100 years for the possibility to express their ethnic and civil rights without having to deny their cultural and identity roots, their language and their traditions.
A political solution for Kurdistan is equivalent to saying that a world is possible in which the social order is not based on the logic of borders, racial discrimination, patriarchy, the exploitation of nature and workers and the repression of dissent. Freedom for Öcalan and a political solution for Kurdistan means fighting for a world in which communities decide what their needs should be and how to invest their material resources, all of this from an internationalist perspective that promotes the peaceful coexistence of peoples and the demolition of the walls that divide the struggles. We believe that this is the future to aim for and that Öcalan's release is the first fundamental step to be taken so that this future can truly come true."