Support justice for the Kurdish people

THIS week I visited Imam Sis, a Newport resident and member of the Kurdish community in Wales, now on week four of an indefinite hunger strike. Kurds have been on hunger strikes, fasts and protests across the world; 200 Kurds marched through Cardiff last weekend.

Leyla Guven, a democratically elected Kurdish MP to the Turkish Parliament, has been on hunger strike in prison for two months and is now in a critical condition suffering from weight loss, sensitivity to noise and light, headaches and dizziness, fatigue, hypertension, and stomach cramps. She was jailed in January 2018 after criticising Turkey’s military intervention against the Kurds in northern Syria.

Fifteen Kurds are on an indefinite hunger strike in Strasbourg and many more are on hunger strike in Turkish prisons. The hunger strikes are calling for an end to the isolation of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. The leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been held in solitary confinement by Turkey since 1999 following his jailing for “treason” and “separatism”. Since 2011 his lawyers have been denied access and since 2016 his family have also been denied access.

It is believed by many that freedom for Öcalan is the precondition for a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish question in Turkey.

The international campaign for his release and restarting a peace process have been supported by the Trade Union Congress representing 50 British trade unions, Jeremy Corbyn, Plaid Cymru, Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire (Nobel Peace Laureate) among others.

Please write to your MP to press for Britain to end arms sales to Turkey and support justice for the Kurdish people. Messages of support to Newport hunger striker Imam Sis can be sent to cardiffstopthewar@gmail.com

Adam Johannes Cardiff Stop the War Coalition Adamsdown, Cardiff