KON-MED, FED-KURD, FCK, FED-MED, FCKM-KAWA, YJK-E-Germany organised the Newroz celebration in Frankfurt on Saturday with the slogan "Newroza azadiya Rêber Apo Pîroz be".

Isolation, 50th Anniversary Declaration, and ban on PKK

Some 60 thousand Kurds attended the Newroz celebration. They reached the area where the celebration was held with hundreds of buses from 150 cities. The people saluted the PKK's 50th Anniversary Declaration, protested the isolation imposed on Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan, and demanded the lifting of the ban on the PKK.

Many young people and women attended the celebration and saluted the guerrilla resistance in Kurdistan while at the same time demanding an end to the isolation imposed on Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan.

KON-MED co-chair and a member of the Newroz Organizing Committee, Zübeyde Zümrüt, KON-MED co-chair Engin Sever, HDP Europe co-spokesperson Leyla İmret, and representatives of the Peoples' United Revolutionary Movement and Tevgera Ciwanên Şoreşger delivered speeches.

Zübeyde Zümrüt said: “We declared the Newroz of Reber Apo as the Newroz of freedom. Rêber Apo is the red line for us, women and youth. We will work day and night, street by street, house by house, until we achieved his freedom.”

Engin Sever, on the other hand, referred to the ban on the PKK and said that the ban should come to an end. Addressing the countries that sell weapons to the Turkish state, Sever said: “The massacres in Kurdistan are happening with your weapons. Chemical weapons were used in Garê, Heftanîn and Metîna. These weapons were bought from Europe. Today, the Kurdish people demand their freedom and the freedom of our leader.”

HDP Europe co-spokesperson Leyla Imret focused on the call made by Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan at the 2013 Newroz and the Kurdish freedom movement's stance in favour of a solution. Stating that the Turkish state responded to the people's demands for peace and democracy by destroying cities like Cizre, Sur, Nusaybin, as well as by occupying Rojava, filing a closure case against the HDP and following a policy of trustees, Imret said: "The Turkish state's policy of denial of destruction is a policy of racism."

Saying that "the solution to all problems in the Middle East is Abdullah Öcalan's third way paradigm," Imret added: "Let the Imrali gates be opened and the invasion attacks come to an end."

The HBDH (People's United Revolutionary Movement) said in its statement: “We are going through a chaotic period in which fascism comes against us with all the aggression of imperialism. We are going through a period of bombs. War is imposed instead of the right of peoples to self-determination.”

TCŞ referred to the 50th anniversary of Newroz saying that “Apoist youth waged an uninterrupted struggle during this fifty-year period. No matter how many attacks took place against women, youth and the freedom of the country, no one could break the will of the revolutionary youth. As TCŞ and Teko-Jin, we celebrate the 50th Leadership's Newroz with a revolutionary spirit.”

Artist Şehirbana Kurdi touched upon the importance of the alliance between the Kurds, while Vedat Yıldırım, the lead singer of Koma Bajar, saluted the enthusiasm of the people.

Kurdish rapper Sheriff Ömeri saluted the guerrillas that liberated Rojava and all of Kurdistan from the occupation. Tev-Çand groups ended the celebration.