Kurdish's people leader Abdullah Öcalan arrived in Rome on 12 November 1998 accompanied by Ramon Mantovani, then deputy of Rifondazione Comunista party.

In a message endorsing the campaign Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, Mantovani recalled his meeting with the Kurdish people's leader and urged everyone to support the campaign.

Here is the full statement by Ramon Mantovani: 

"President Abdullah Öcalan is being illegally detained and tortured for 21 years in a Turkish jail. Comrade Abdullah Öcalan is the leader of the Kurdish people but he is also a reference for all the oppressed people of the world as well as for all the struggle democratic and revolutionary movements.

His example is a very important example of the emancipation struggle of the entire humanity. I can confirm, because I have known him in 1998, first in the Middle East and then during his stance in Italy, that Öcalan is a man of peace.

He has always struggled for a negotiated and political solution to the conflicts. He has always proposed a negotiation through which recognise the rights of the Kurdish people and on this basis build a democratic co-existence of all people.

His Democratic Confederalism model put in practice in Rojava is an example that everyone, all over the world should follow. It is an advanced point in the struggle of emancipation of the world, the rights of women, the idea of direct democracy from below, the building of truly democratic and popular institutions are an advanced point in the international struggle to transform this world.

For this reason, today, all democratic and revolutionary movements parties, all trade unions, all institutions, all intellectuals, all who say to be democratic have to ask out loud the liberation of Abdullah Öcalan.

They must allow the Kurdish people to exist and they must allow that Abdullah Öcalan return to speak, act and write freely. It is a commitment each and every one of us needs to assume and nobody should stand back on this."