British international human rights lawyer Margaret Owen OBE has started a 5-day hunger strike in the Democratic Kurdish Community Centre in London Tuesday in solidarity with Kurdish hunger activists on hunger strike demanding the end of the isolation imposed on Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan.

The press conference was attended by Ali Poyraz, Nahide Zengin and Mehmet Sait Yılmaz who have been on an indefinite hunger strike in Kurdish Community Centre since March 14, and 15 activists who have been on an alternating hunger strike.

Irish priest Joe Ryan, British artist Maxine Peake, author Rahila Gupta, academic Thomas Jeffrey Miley and unionist Stephen Smiley also attended the event.

Speeches made at the press conference are as follows;

Father Joe Ryan

It’s a privilege for me to be here in solidarity especially with Margaret, Ali, Nahide and Mehmet, whom I had the privilege of welcoming to our church locally. Over the years I have been so frustrated and angry and annoyed at the silence, the silence that is there, the silence is deathing. And I keep going on about the fact, the silence is partly as we know because the PKK are on the terrorist list and so internationally are in any situation it is so convenient to be able to say we don’t have to negotiate with terrorists. And so they can justify then the silence. I’m speaking as an Irish man and I know from experience, when I came to work in this country from, work in London in the early 70s because I had an Irish accent, I was suspect and I was also branded as a terrorist because I was supposedly supporting the IRA, SINN FEINN. And all sorts of different things, and so this branding then abdicates the necessity to recognise somebody that is struggling for justice so I’m here in solidarity knowing some of the background. I’m almost jealous of the Kurdish people knowing more Irish history then I do, and I would consider myself fairly well up on Irish history well that’s because the identity of the two situations. Yes back to Margaret I would like to presume that Margaret is a friend and a colleague of mine, we have been campaigning together and we have had some funny times together and we have enjoyed each other’s company, and I felt honoured to be part of what Margaret is doing and of course we wish you well in this exercise and again as someone has said what a tragedy it is that one has to risk life and limb in order that human rights - the basic human rights are highlighted, and for Abdullah Ocalan all we are looking for simple and basic human rights, ok we are campaigning and I have been campaigning as many others have been for his Freedom, but at this point just for the removal of the isolation and that the international laws which turkey are breaking, that at least the international laws will be recognised, because they are denying their own laws. And so it’s a complex situation but we are here in solidarity and I am proud to be part of it. Also keeping in mind I feel i have an obligation because I am Parish Priest here in St John Vianney Parish, which is actually taking in Kurdish centre, so you are part of our community and I feel obliged and I feel a privilege to be part of the whole movement and I will continue supporting while there is breath in my body. But I just feel so frustrated that I’m not able to do what I should be doing, what might be doing, but none the less we keep trying and live overstepped my time and it was great to be here with you thank you very much!

Maxine Peake

Beautiful and stirring words. I’m here to show solidarity with Margaret I had the privilege, I think pleasure is the wrong word to meet Leyla Guven when I went over in the peace delegation. And I’m just here to show solidarity and to ask our county to open its eyes to not be complicit and also for the Turkish government to please look at its own human rights abuses and its own laws and how it constantly violates them and just to stand in solidarity with the Kurdish community. There’s very little I feel I can do but I just want my presence to be here and just to say my heart is with you all, just so much love for your plight. Thank you.

Margaret Owen

I am really so pleased and proud to be with you all today. Because Leyla Guven now on her 146th day needs our solidarity desperately as do the other I think over 7 thousand other political prisoners in Turkey abdominal prisons are also in strike and all over the world. I’m learning today maybe 10 thousand hunger strikers mainly Kurdish people all over the world. To my great sadness I hear today the sixth prisoner has just died in Turkish prison. And yet I’m sad, proud to be here, but also I am angry, I’m very angry, and I am very ashamed because there is barely anything – here I am in London reading the newspapers, listening to the news, turning on my television listening to my radio. And there is the most shameful and scandalous silence about what is going on in Turkey. It isn’t the torture and the isolation of Ocalan, as Leyla Guven has said is also symbolic because it’s about the torture of all the Kurdish people in Turkey and in Syria. He has not been able to see his lawyers since 2011 nor his family since 2015. Forget the ten-minute visit from his brother when we were there in January. And that is against all international laws. We talk a lot about the Mandela rule, the Mandela rules actually laid down as international rules, the rights of all people who are prisoners all people in detention and every prisoner has the right to be visited by his lawyer. Its extraordinary that Leyla Guven who is actually critically ill at this moment. Absolutely wonderful woman, she’s been imprisoned for over a year since January of last year and she was imprisoned because she was protesting about the atrocities that turkey was perpetrating in Afrin. And nobody wants any of these prisoners to die. And it’s up to our government and the international community now to be major aware of what is happening and stop appeasing this genocide that is going on in Turkey and stop selling arms in breach of our own obligations under the arms treaty, selling arms to a regime which is actually using arms against its own people. So we want the peace process to begin again in Turkey and who must lead that peace process is Ocalan, and Ocalan cannot lead anything as long as he is in prison. So I am here in solidarity with all the thousands of people, and I feel rather ashamed that I’m not doing an indefinite hunger strike. I’m not doing it indefinitely, I’m only doing it for under a week. But I hope that by me doing it at my age here as a British international human rights lawyer that maybe we can get more publicity and we can lift the blanket of silence on the terrible things that are going on in Turkey, and stop my government the UK government being blamed by history for being an accessory to a genocide. Thank you.

Rahila Gupta

Before I left for Rojava I first came across Margaret because my family were really worried that I was going to travel to a war zone and needed some reassurance and because Margaret had been there before I rang her to say Margaret can you give me some reassurance that I can pass on to my family. She said tell them I am an 82 years old woman at that time and I feel much safer in Qamishlo then in Oxford street. I passed on to my family though they were not that reassured by it. But I just want to say, my coming praise really of Margaret, her courage her determination, her dedication to the cause, your energy, I’m truly humbled, you are an amazing woman. I followed your travels to turkey, I bumped into you in numerable meetings you’ve always been full of energy. And I think to use your body, not just you but all the other people who are on hunger strike. To use your body as a political manifesto, to do violence to yourself by starving yourself of food as many days as Leyla Guven has, and to fast until death, I think is just a measure of both of courage as well as desperation that we have not been able to raise the British government, the world media, the British media to be able to draw attention to the fact that Abdullah Ocalan is entering his 20th year of solitary confinement and for what. For the dream of a new world, not just for the Kurdish people but I think for all of us.  So I really think its commendable that you are doing this, it’s sad and tragic at the same time that there are all these people who might be heading towards their death because Erdogan is not listening and I think the weaker her gets, the Turkish elections have fortunately  shown that he has lost few cities, but my anxiety is that the weaker he gets the more brutal he is going to get towards the Kurdish people. Let’s just hope we can shift this somehow or the other, this is what politics of solidarity looks like so thank you.

Stephen Smiley

We set up in 2016, and we now have support from the British TUC and the Scottish TUC 14 different affiliated all of us demanding that Abdullah Ocalan must be freed from prison to lead the peace negotiations because that’s what we are ultimately for peace for freedom, for democracy in turkey trade unions worldwide internationally stand by those principles of democracy freedom, justice and equality which Ocalan teaches us. Is the answer to the problems which exist in Turkey. There is no resolution to the so-called Kurdish question accept through democracy and peace. And that’s what the freedom for Ocalan campaign is all about. I’m extremely humbled to be here at a time where thousands of people are on hunger strike as symbol of the determination and the importance of Ocalan to their demand, their desire for peace and freedom. I’m not surprised to learn that Margaret Owen has decided to join and make a stance. I met Margaret for the first time when we were election observers in Turkey I think in 2010, the region of Bingol and we were vising an election station to observe what was going on. And I was teamed up with Margaret and my job was to keep an eye on Margaret…

It would not be necessary for people like Leyla Guven to put her life on the line for this desperate state of international politics, because ordinary men and women have to take this stand when our leader and politician should actually do something about it.

Thomas Jeffrey

I’m here to show my respect and solidarity to all the hunger strikers and particularly to Margaret Owe, making such an important message, passing on such an important message to a public that is sleep in this country and that can only think about things like Brexit Brexit… while human rights atrocities are happening. I think it’s very important the Kurdish community more generally with thousands of hunger strikers, coming out of the amazing example, spreading out from the Kurdish region in Turkey, across Europe, across the world. With their impressive will to struggle the will to struggle against tyranny, these human rights atrocities but not only against these things but for something- which is the alternative to this ecological catastrophe we have going on which is the alternative to the endless wars, war after war. Which is the alternative inspired by Abdullah Ocalan democratic confederal ideal, so I think the Kurdish freedom movement is at the vanguard of the struggle for the future of humanity so I’m here to show my respect first and foremost showing the way forward with this impressive will to struggle, thank you Margaret some people in Britain are also taking note!