Le Mouvement de la Paix said in a statement to mark the 22nd anniversary of the capture of Abdullah Öcalan that he should be immediately released and added: "France and the European Union should remove the PKK from the list of terrorist organizations."
The peace movement in France, Le Mouvement de la Paix, published a written statement regarding the ongoing campaign for the freedom of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan.
Thee statement demanded the European Union and NATO to end their support to the Turkish state and added that the PKK was born as a self-defense movement and should not be on the terrorist list.
The statement said: "Abdullah Öcalan, should be released immediately and unconditionally and so should all political prisoners in Turkey."
The statement added: “Öcalan’s fate resembles that of more than 10,000 political prisoners in Turkey, journalists, lawyers, trade unionists but also elected officials who, just after their democratic election, were dismissed from their posts and replaced by officials appointed by the government. Among these prisoners are the two HDP co-presidents, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yuksekdag. This party brings together Kurds, but also Yazidis, Armenians, Assyrians and Chaldeans. In the last municipal elections, the HDP was instrumental in defeating the ruling AKP party in several of its strongholds such as the cities of Istanbul and Ankara.”
The statement also recalled that “the Permanent Peoples Tribunal in its conclusions in May 2018 at the European Parliament in Brussels, compared the struggle of the PKK and Abdullah Öçalan to that of the French resistance fighters during the Second World War. It argues that this fight can in no way be equated with terrorism of which the PKK is often accused. The participation of the Kurds, within the framework of an alliance with the USA, France, Russia, the United Kingdom in particular, was decisive in defeating the Islamic State. Turkey is currently posing very serious threats to the Sinjar (Shengal) region, a strategic region located on the borders of Turkey, Syria and Iraq: everything must be done to prevent the Yazidis from further massacres. The European Union and NATO must end their unconditional support for Erdogan's Turkey.
The reestablishment of peace and democracy in this region of the world, in particular in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, requires the implementation of the rights of all peoples, the Kurds as well as the rest of the world. Turkish society.”
Finally, the statement called on “France and the European Union” to “remove the PKK from the list of terrorist organizations. Abdullah Öçalan, along with all political prisoners in Turkey, must be released immediately and unconditionally.”
