Imprisoned for more than 24 years on the prison island of Imrali, the Kurdish people's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, has been held incommunicado for 30 months now, without any contact with the outside world. The complete lack of information regarding the situation of Öcalan and his three fellow prisoners – Hamili Yıldırım, Ömer Hayri Konar and Veysi Aktaş – raises growing concerns about their safety and health. Countless requests for visits filed for years by the lawyers and families of Imrali detainees have gone unanswered.

The Union of Young Women in Kobanê organized a march to denounce the international conspiracy against Abdullah Öcalan that resulted in his handover to Turkey in 1999, since when he has been held captive on the prison island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara in Turkey.

The march was followed by a demonstration where a member of the Union, Ciwan Alîkar Mistefa, read out a press statement which said: “The genocidal powers initiated the greatest savagery against the Kurdish people’s leader 25 years ago. The conspiracy was aimed at annihilating the Kurdish people and the freedom movement. Leader Öcalan left Syria on 9 October 1998 due to Turkish state repression and went to Europe to develop a democratic solution to the Kurdish question. Seeking to prevent Leader Öcalan’s efforts for the freedom of the Kurdish people and search for peace in the Middle East, the conspiratorial powers did not allow the recognition of Leader Öcalan anywhere.”

Remarking that the conspiracy was developed against the Kurdish people and all libertarian  peoples in the person of Abdullah Öcalan, the statement said: “The freedom of the Kurdish people and world women cannot be achieved unless the physical freedom of Leader Abdullah Öcalan is attained.”

The statement added: “Our primary duty is to break the isolation imposed on Abdullah Öcalan and to achieve his physical freedom.”