Kurds and Supporters Rally Outside White House Calling for Freedom of Abdullah Öcalan
PHOTOS: PETE AZEN
Kurds and Supporters: “Free Abdullah Öcalan!
End U.S. Support for Turkey! ”
Members of the Kurdish community and their supporters gathered in front of the White House on Thursday to call for the release of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, and an end to American military and political support for Turkey. The protest took place in coordination with the international campaign “Freedom for Öcalan, A Political Solution for the Kurdish Question,” as part of a global day of action marking the 25th anniversary of his capture.
Öcalan was abducted in a U.S.-backed international intelligence operation, and since then has been kept in an island prison in Turkey, barred from all contact with the outside world for years at a time. He has been subjected to torture and, since March of 2021, denied access to all means of communication and contact with the outside world, including his lawyers and family, an illegal treatment known as “incommunicado detention/absolute non-communication.”
The international ‘Freedom for Öcalan’ campaign unites millions of Kurds and their allies in opposition to Turkey’s ongoing colonization and oppression of Kurds, calling for Öcalan’s immediate release and direct participation in a renewed dialogue for a just peace.
“Turkey’s ability to wage war on Kurds across the region is the result of decades of unconditional support from NATO and the United States,” said Anna Rebrii, a member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava and a participant in the rally. “Washington is Turkey’s primary arms supplier; and U.S. political and legal designations criminalize Kurdish politics worldwide.”
Abdullah Ocalan is the founding leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). His political ideas on multiethnic grassroots democracy, women’s freedom, and social ecology inspired the basis for the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES, also known as Rojava), where millions of people from different ethnic and religious groups live together under a democratic and peaceful system of self-governance.
“Öcalan’s vision is a path to peace,” Anna Rebrii continued. “He has unilaterally declared ceasefires nine times, and served as the lead negotiator in historic peace talks from 2013 - 2015”.
Since then, Turkey’s increasingly dictatorial president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has cynically chosen to stoke anti-Kurdish sentiments to consolidate his own power. As a result, dialogue has been replaced with invasions, drone strikes, assassinations, mass imprisonment, and the complete dismissal of the rule of law.
Turkey has consistently attacked the peaceful region of North-East Syria, targeting women's rights defenders, minority groups, civilians and civilian infrastructure, including water supplies. In recent weeks, Turkey has bombarded Rojava’s electrical infrastructure depriving more than a million people of electricity. Its cross-border attacks into Iraqi Kurdistan and crackdown on dissent at home and abroad makes a political solution urgent now more than ever.
“Öcalan’s release and participation in peace talks is critical to securing the full rights of Kurds and other religious and ethnic minorities to live a peaceful existence in the Middle East,” said Anna Rebrii. “It is time to Free Abdullah Öcalan and end U.S. complicity in Turkey’s war on the Kurds!”
The rally was co-sponsored by the following organizations:
Emergency Committee for Rojava
Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America
Armenian National Committee of America
Armenian Organized Resistance
Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council
Horizon Federation
