Activists from Kurdish youth organisations issued a statement in Basel on the international campaign launched on 10 October demanding “Freedom of Abdullah Öcalan and a political solution to the Kurdish question.” The globally supported campaign demands immediate access of the legal team and family members to the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan imprisoned in Turkey and finally his release under conditions that allow him to play a role in finding a political solution to the Kurdish question.

The joint statement of support by the Revolutionary Youth Movement (Tevgera Ciwanên Şoreşger, TCŞ) and the Movement of Militant Young Women (Jinên Ciwan ên Têkoşer, TekoJIN) was presented in Basel in Kurdish by Dilbirîn Mêrdîn, in Turkish by Yusuf Amed and in German by Michele Romito.

The statement called on all young people to actively participate in the campaign, saying the following: "For 25 years, the leader of the Kurdish people, Abdullah Öcalan, has been held incommunicado on the Turkish prison island of Imrali. The Turkish occupying state and the international powers want to normalise this state of affairs, which is contrary to international law, and silence Kurdish society. A society that has suffered decades of massacres, assimilation and wars has managed to gain its human dignity through Abdullah Öcalan.

But for the fascist Turkish state, the flourishing of Kurdish society is a nightmare, because the Kurds who organise with the Kurdish Freedom Movement insist on a democratic and diverse society without oppression and power relations. The paradigm of Abdullah Öcalan, whose basic principles are women's liberation, ecology and autonomous democracy, questions the whole capitalist world system and is seen as a great danger against the world order. Especially in the Middle East, this contemporary paradigm has the potential to provide for international understanding and peace with a confederal structure.

Since the hegemonic powers do not want to lose control over the Middle East, they are not interested in the self-determination of the peoples and a democratic solution. That is why these international forces are silent against the solitary confinement of Abdullah Öcalan. We, as youth, declare that we will play a leading role in the struggle for the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan."