Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been held as a political hostage on the prison island of Imrali, most of the time under conditions of total isolation, since his arrest and deportation to Turkey as a result of an international conspiracy on 15 February 1999.

Kurds and their friends are going into action all around the world to demand the lifting of Abdullah Öcalan's incommunicado detention and the resumption of peace negotiations and conditions for the Kurdish leader in which he can live and work freely in order to contribute to the solution to the Kurdish question.

Young people took to the streets in the northern Syrian town of Ain Issa to demand freedom for Abdullah Öcalan and denounce the aggravated isolation regime imposed on the Kurdish leader who has not been heard from since March 2021.

The protest march, organised under the motto “Youth are the devotees of Leader Öcalan”, was also staged by IDPs from Girê Spî (Tal Abyad), which was occupied by Turkey in 2019 and is now controlled by the Turkish intelligence service and jihadist mercenaries. According to the Girê Spî Cantol Council, more than 100,000 people had to flee the region after the Turkish invasion.

The march was followed by a press statement which pointed out that “the invading Turkish state attacks people who are organised with the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan”.

Speaking after, the Syrian Revolutionary Youth Movement member Macid Husam criticised the silence of international and legal organizations in the face of the isolation of Öcalan and the crimes committed against the Kurdish people. Husam vowed that they would increase their struggle until the physical freedom of Öcalan was ensured.

The demonstration concluded with the slogan "Bê Serok jiyan nabe" (No Life Without the Leader).