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2,000 people march in London in support of Kurdish hunger
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2,000 people march in London in support of
Kurdish hunger strikers in Turkey
12.11.2012
By Paul Burnham, Peace in Kurdistan
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2,000 people march in London in support of Kurdish
hunger strikers in Turkey.
Photo:
Paul Burnham.
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Photo:
Paul Burnham
Demonstrators sit down in Harringay Green Lanes.
Photo:
Paul Burnham
November 12, 2012
LONDON,— On Sunday, 11th November, more
than 2,000 Kurds marched five miles across North
London in solidarity with the Kurdish hunger strikes
in Turkish prisons, which have reached their 61st
day. The hunger strikes are reaching a critical
stage, and some hunger strikers may be near death.
The 680 hunger strikers include elected
representatives who have been jailed under the
repressive policies of Turkish Prime minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan. They are demanding Kurdish language
rights, and the end of the isolation in jail of
Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers’
Party (PKK), to help to negotiate a political
settlement to the Kurdish Question. Other Kurds have
joined the strike by refusing food in solidarity,
including MPs belonging to the pro-Kurdish BDP
(peace and democracy) party.
The fifteen to twenty million Kurds in Turkey have
faced decades of oppression. Turkey is a key ally of
the USA and Britain, and Turkey’s policies towards
the Kurds have only been sustained with tacit US and
British support.
In 2009, the Turkish government began talks with the
PKK at Oslo in Norway, but then abruptly broke off
the talks. Since July, the pressure on Turkey’s
government has racked up,www.ekurd.net
as Syrian Kurds have established an autonomous zone
along Turkey’s southern borders, and Erdoğan’s
military interventions in Syria are aimed at least
partly to control the Kurds.
Erdoğan said of the strike that “there is no such
thing, It is a complete show. I personally sent my
minister to prison to see for himself. Over half
have already given up”, but Kurds in Turkey respond
at mass rallies by vowing that “We won’t be silent
toward deaths”.
But Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish
BDP party, has warned Erdoğan that the Kurds would
follow the path of the Egyptian revolution by
“seeking their freedom in their own Tahrir squares”.
Demirtaş told a mass rally in South-East Turkey in
support of the hunger strike to “start acting like a
government and a state – there is a people in front
of you. Look, a Kurdish state is being constructed
in the Middle East.”
The mood of the march in London was very militant.
Many of the demonstrators wore the Kurdish national
colours, and they repeatedly sat down in the road.
The march began at
Edmonton Green, ending with a rally near Harringay
Green Lanes.
Mehmet Aksoy from the Kurdish Federation in London
says, “We want freedom for Öcalan, for there to be
meaningful negotiations. And we want an end to the
ban on using Kurdish in the law courts and in
schools.
“We want the cries of the hunger strikers to be
heard. We call on the international community to
pressure Turkey into meeting our demands as the only
way to bring a just and honourable peace.”
For more information contact :
Peace in Kurdistan Campaign on 020 7586 5892
Kurdish Federation UK at Fedbir@gmail.com <mailto:Fedbir@gmail.com>
Mehmet Aksoy on 0795 048 2605
More from:
Paul Burnham
07847 714 158
Pictures 6, 7, 12: On the march
Pictures 17, 18, 22: Demonstrators sit down in
Harringay Green Lanes
Photographs: Paul Burnham
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