Members of the Youth Committee of the Afrin Canton Martyrs' Families Council made a press statement outside the Resistance of the Age Martyrs’ Cemetery in the Ehraz district of Shehba Canton on Monday.

Hemed Hac Ehmed, a member of Afrin Canton Martyrs' Families Council, read out the statement, saying, “Whenever people demand freedom and democracy, fight and resist for their rights, regimes that seek to destroy human dignity and support terrorism become oppressive.”

“The fascist Turkish regime and its mercenaries attempt to break the will of our people, impose subjugation on tens of thousands of fighters, revolutionaries, politicians, journalists and lawyers and commit various crimes against them,” Ehmed added.

The statement denounced the isolation imposed on Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan and other political prisoners, saying that the aim of the isolation is to distance prisoners from Öcalan's ideas and philosophy.

The activists also denounced Turkey’s use of chemical weapons in the Medya Defence Zones in South Kurdistan (North Iraq), noting that “Turkey is a so-called member of the UN human rights assembly.”

Hac Ehmed urged the International Coalition, the UN and human rights organizations to put pressure on the Turkish state and to try the perpetrators of the crimes in question in an international court.