The Welsh Assembly passed a motion following a Plaid Cymru-led debate which criticised the treatment of Kurdish People’s Leader Öcalan.

The motion, passed with 25 AMs (Assembly Member) votes in favour, 14 abstentions and 11 votes against, stated that Öcalan is not being held in line with human rights law.

Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales East, Delyth Jewell, made the case for the motion in the Senedd (Senate) on Wednesday. She said: "Surely, it is incumbent on the National Assembly and Welsh Government to recognise and support the part that a Newport man is currently playing in an international struggle for justice, equality and human rights."

Former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said the hunger strikes aim to pressure the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to "pay a visit to check on the situation of the Kurdish leader".

She called for the assembly to send a "clear message today that Turkey must cease its barbaric treatment of Kurdish people".

The Welsh Assembly motion, tabled by Plaid Cymru, said Mr Öcalan's imprisonment was "under conditions which are understood to contravene the Turkish state's legal obligations in relation to human rights".

It added that Mr Sis, along with other hunger strikers, wanted to see a peaceful, political solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey.

It called for the Welsh Government to lobby a Council of Europe committee to assess Mr Ocalan's condition.

Eluded Morgan, minister for international relations, said her government was "extremely concerned about the worsening condition of Imam Sis from Newport".

She said she raised Mr Sis's hunger strike and the reasons for it with the Turkish ambassador.

She said: "The ambassador asserted that in March 2018 the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture published a report that highlighted that the conditions under which Ocalan had been held had materially improved since their previous visit in 2013.

"It's worth noting however that the European report suggests that the authors had serious concerns about the prisoner's contact with the outside world and this has deteriorated."

She said the matter was not devolved to the Welsh Government, but there was nothing to prevent the assembly writing a letter.

Ministers abstained on the motion but some Labour AMs backed it.

Conservative AM Darren Millar questioned whether the debate was a good use of the assembly's time.

Ending the debate with a last remark before the vote, Delyth Jewell said: "The motion is about human rights and ending the enforced solitary confinement of a political prisoner. And the life of a Welsh citizen— Imam is 32; he's a year older than me, and he might die.”