Thousands of people have taken to the streets in the autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria on Wednesday to demonstrate their solidarity with Abdullah Öcalan 24 years after his imprisonment and to point out his key role.
24 years ago, on 15 February 1999, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was kidnapped from the Greek embassy in Kenya in an interstate coup involving several secret services and brought to Turkey. Before his arrest, he spent years in Lebanon and Syria, and many people there still knew him personally.
To mark the anniversary of his abduction and detention, demonstrations have taken place all over the autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria. "We will smash the Imrali system through the people's struggle" was the slogan of the protests in Qamişlo, Girkê Legê, Dêrik, Hesekê, Til Temir, Hol, Sedadê, Tabqa, Raqqa, Kobanê and Şehba.
At the demonstration in Qamişlo, PYD Chairperson Asya Abdullah condemned Öcalan's abduction as a "plot by international and local powers". "If the Kurdish question is to be solved and peace is to come to the Middle East, the key to this is to be found on the prison island of Imrali. Whoever wants to solve the Kurdish question must break the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan," said the Kurdish politician and called on the international public to put pressure on the Turkish state.
The demonstration in Kobanê also marked the end of a three-day march by the Revolutionary Youth Movement of Syria and the Young Women's Association.
