On 25 June this year, the Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan Vigil in Strasbourg will celebrate its tenth anniversary. For 520 weeks, different delegations of activists have gathered every week in front of the building of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and in the immediate vicinity of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights to demand the freedom of Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been kept under isolation on the prison island of Imrali since 1999.

This week, a delegation from the Democratic Kurdish Society Center in Münster have taken over the vigil. The group consists of Yılmaz Tekin, Rêber Zan, Veli Dede and Celal Ruha.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Tekin recalled Öcalan's kidnapping on 15 February 1999 and said: "Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] was taken hostage by the Turkish state as a result of an international conspiracy. He has since been kept in a historically unprecedented isolation. Our goal is for Apo to be released as soon as possible. Rêber Apo is a free spirit, but his physical freedom is important to us. Millions stand behind his ideas and his thinking."

Tekin added: "Öcalan's ideas and his paradigm are dangerous for the imperialists. His paradigm not only forms the basis for the liberation of the Kurdish people, but for all oppressed humanity. That is why the states are silent about his isolation and imprisonment. The isolation of Rêber Apo is taking place with international support. We as Kurdish people condemn this."