The Kurdish European umbrella organization KCDK-E criticized the German government for its anti-Kurdish persecution policy. The association accused Germany of a "witch hunt" against Kurdish politicians and criticized their imprisonment.

The declaration was issued to protest the impending extradition of the Kurdish politician Kenan Ayaz to Germany. The KCDK-E said: "Politician Kenan Ayaz was arrested at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus while traveling to Sweden to visit his family. The Cypriot authorities justified the arrest with an arrest warrant based on an extradition request from the German state."

Five years in prison for Özgür A.

The KCDK-E also spoke about the conviction of Özgür A. on 10 May. The court in Koblenz said that from May 2018 until his arrest in Bremen in April 2022, the Kurdish activist was responsible for various areas of Germany as a "full-time cadre" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). As a result, it sentenced the activist to five years in prison under Sections 129a/b of the Criminal Code for "being a member of a terrorist organization abroad."

The KCDK-E said: "None of the allegations and reasons for the judgments against Kurdish politicians imprisoned in Germany refer to ‘terrorist acts’. Kurdish politicians are being tried primarily on the basis of the 1993 PKK ban. Based on this, all legitimate demands and activities of Kurdish politicians and the Kurdish community as a whole are criminalized in Germany. This political campaign of annihilation by the German state against Kurdish politicians has no legal basis whatsoever. It is totally anti-democratic and at odds with the international democratic and intellectual values that Europe claims to stand for."

End the complicity!

The KCDK-E called on the German government to end its criminalization policy and its anti-Kurdish complicity with the AKP-MHP fascism and to release all political prisoners immediately. On Thursday, the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court sentenced the Kurdish activist Abdullah Öcalan to four years and five months in prison for "membership in a terrorist organization abroad" under Sections 129a/b of the Criminal Code.

The KCDK-E continued: "Thousands of Kurdish politicians are being imprisoned in Turkey without any legal basis. Unfortunately, the German government is resorting to similar methods. These arrests are not independent of Turkey. The Kurdish people are defamed as 'terrorists' for their struggle for democracy and freedom. But the whole world knows that the Kurdish people saved humanity from the horrors of ISIS and continues its struggle for freedom. We call on Germany to stop being an accomplice to massacres  carried out by Turkey and to stop supporting the dictator Erdoğan and the AKP state. Instead of supporting the genocidal policy of the Turkish state, the German government should contribute to the search for a democratic solution to the Kurdish question and give up its criminalization policy."