We'll ask for PKK's removal from the terrorist organisations list

The 'PKK trial' was in fact an attack on Kurds living in Sweden, says Left Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson Håkan Svennelig.

Swedish Left Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson Håkan Svennelig and Ahmet Ulusoy, who has been subjected to the pressure of the Swedish state for years as he was wrongly connected to the Palme murder, made a statement to ANF.

Svennelig said he found Sweden's longest trial [the trial on the murder of Olof Palme] positive, even though no one was ultimately convicted for the murder.

Svennelig said that indeed different people were from time to time accused of murder during the Palme investigation, they were accused wrongly, and the focus was on the wrong people or groups; and he cited the example of the PKK, which was wrongly accused of murdering Palme.

Reminding that the Attorney General closed the case by indicating Stig Engström as the killer, Svennelig said that Engström has been investigated for the murder, but at the same time, the state never stopped monitoring the PKK. He considered that this was a crude mistake committed by the Swedish legal system and police.

Regarding the Kurdish associations and organizations demanding the Swedish state to apologize to Kurds and remove the PKK from the list of terrorist organizations, Svennelig said: “This is a logical request. Many Kurdish families suffered some different kind of pressure from Swedish institutions. They were followed by the police and other institutions. Their homes were raided and their residence permits revoked. All this was done on baseless charges. The 'PKK trial' was in fact an attack on Kurds living in Sweden."

The Left Party is the only party in the Swedish Parliament that demands that the PKK be removed from the "terrorist organizations" list. At the party's congress held in 2016, the party administration was given the task to work for the removal of the PKK from the list of terrorist organizations.

Svennelig added: “We intend to bring the issue of the removal of the PKK from the “list of terrorist organisations” to the agenda at a convenient time. The fact that the PKK is on the list of terrorist organizations is based on Turkish imperialist policy. Turkey uses this to put pressure on other countries. This must be stopped. For this reason, we should bring up the demand for the PKK to be removed from the list of terrorist organizations. We will definitely re-propose this issue. We will bring this to the agenda of the European Union."

Ahmet Ulusoy recalled: “I first went to Denmark and then to Germany in order to flee the oppression [in Turkey]. I went to Denmark in 1987, but my application for asylum was rejected. I was caught in Germany, they brought me back to Denmark. If we went out of the municipal boundaries, they would give us a prison sentence of between 1 month and 1 year.”

Ulusoy stated that the purpose of the Swedish government is to ensure that the Kurds, who are labelled as terrorists, leave Sweden and go to other countries.

Ulusoy added that he will meet with lawyers to explore legal ways he could undertake in relation to the pressure he suffered in the past. “The important thing is to bring the pressure we have experienced in the past to the public agenda and ensure that the courts accept this. Even if they pay one crown in compensation, the important is that they make a decision and recognise the facts.”

 

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