It was an impressive sight – a long column of those familiar yellow flags, bright in the winter sunshine, each with Abdullah Öcalan’s image and the simple message: freedom for Öcalan.
On Saturday, the annual march on the anniversary of Öcalan’s abduction and imprisonment returned to Stasbourg, home of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. Thousands of people walked from Boulevard de Nancy to Place Dauphin, where a large stage blocked off the front entrance to the shopping centre, fronted by a banner that read, ‘Notre appel au Conseil de la Europe: Mettez fin à 26 ans d’isolement et de torture d’Abdullah Öcalan. Liberté Pour Öcalan – une Solution Politique Pour la Question Kurd’. The whole area up to the bus station, including the road, was given over to the crowd of Kurds from across Europe, and surrounded by stalls selling books and scarves and kebabs. The enthusiastic crowd included a large number of young people many of whom would not even have been born at the time of Öcalan’s capture, 26 years ago.
If Öcalan’s expected message had not been postponed, the march would have been a lot bigger, but there was still a sense of hope that this march for Öcalan’s freedom just might be the last one: that by next year he could at last be free.
For the people of Strasbourg, their main encounter with the march and rally took the form of closed roads and limited trams, as the march was routed away from the city centre – which rather contradicts the idea of a public demonstration. However it was well-covered in the French press, and the local newspaper, les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, kept up a running report through the day. The engaged and detailed account in l’Humanité is what we have come to expect, but this year’s march was also reported beyond the leftwing press. Medya News described the interest as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘reflecting a significant shift in the visibility of the Kurdish struggle in France’.
Of course, mainstream media – le Figaro, le Monde, BMTV – can’t write or talk about Öcalan without adding the caveat that the PKK is considered a terrorist organisation, but they otherwise let organisers and demonstrators speak for themselves.
Besides representatives from various Kurdish organisations, the crowd welcomed the people who had taken part in long marches across France and Germany leading up to the 15th, and heard a defiant letter from Wirîşe Moradî who is on death row in Iran, and who told her listeners that she had found the answer to her question “who am I” in Öcalan’s thought and philosophy.
French politicians were well represented on the stage – at least politicians from the Left – with statements of support that indicated genuine engagement with the Kurdish situation and the need for Öcalan’s freedom. We heard from two Parliamentary Deputies, Emmanuel Fernandes from La France Insoumise, in whose constituency we were, and Sandra Regol from les Écologistes, who is Deputy for central Strasbourg; and from Strasbourg municipal councillor, Yasmina Chadli from the French Communist Party.
Fernandes is also a Deputy at the Council of Europe, where he has spoken on Kurdish issues, and Regol has just been appointed a deputy there too.
The final speaker was Paul Gavan from Sinn Fein, who has just finished his term at the Council and used his final speech in the Council’s Hemicycle to highlight the Kurdish cause. On Saturday, he had a message for the Council and for the European Parliament, calling on them to step up and play a positive role, and reminding them that ‘They cannot simply pick and choose when it comes to human rights’. He told the crowd, ‘As an Irish Republican, I understand how a peace process can work and can deliver… But the prerequisites to progress are dialogue and inclusion. These principles must be the demand of everyone interested in building a new future for the region.’
During the afternoon, Paul Gavan and Emmanuel Fernandes made brief interviews with Medya News, which you can watch below, along with an interview with Fayik Yagizay, the DEM Party representative to the European Institutions in Strasbourg.
PAUL GAVAN
EMMANUEL FERNANDES
FAYIK YAGIZAY