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Kurdish hunger strike in front of CNN
building in Los Angeles on November 12th: KNCNA
10.11.2012
KNCNA Press Release —
Ekurd.net |
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November 10, 2012
Kurdish National
Congress of North America
P.O.Box 50216, Irvine, CA 92619, www.kncna.org
November 09, 2012
For Immediate Release
Contact: Luqman Barwari
(805) 402-6440
[email protected]
Los Angeles, CA ,— As members of the Kurdish
National Congress of North America (KNC-NA) and the
Kurdish Americans of California, we will
hold a
48-hour hunger strike in front of the CNN building
in Los Angeles, starting on Monday, November 12th .
This is to express our solidarity with the 10,000
Kurdish political prisoners who have been on hunger
strike in Turkey, some of whom since September 12,
2012. With this protest, we want to simultaneously
attract attention to the lack of international media
coverage of the hunger strike and raise awareness.
Those who have started on September 12 are reaching
the 60th day of an indefinite and irreversible
hunger strike. Death and serious health problems are
imminent, as the US-backed Turkish government
refuses to meet the strikers' legitimate demands.
The hunger strikers simply want legal reforms that
would allow the use their mother tongue in education
and in legal defense, and the ending of the now
sixteen-month-long solitary confinement of the
imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan so that
negotiations for a peaceful resolution of the
conflict can restart.
The Kurdish struggle for equal rights has made
historic gains in recent years. Turkey has responded
by imprisoning thousands of Kurdish democracy
advocates, including elected parliamentarians,
mayors, intellectuals, lawyers, journalists,
students, and human rights defenders. The Kurdish
movement continues to call for a democratic solution
to the conflict within Turkey's territorial borders.
Despite this, the Turkish government has taken an
increasingly hard-line attitude. It unilaterally
terminated negotiations with the Kurdish movement,
intensified military and police operations to
repress the Kurdish movement, and prevented Abdullah
Ocalan from meeting his lawyers since July 2011.
The root cause of the hunger strike is the Turkish
government's refusal to accept a negotiated solution
to the Kurdish issue and its endeavors to crush any
democratic resistance to its unjust policies. Any
adverse outcomes resulting from the hunger strikes
will be due to the government's intransigence.
Despite the fact that this hunger strike has reached
the borders of death, the international media
outlets have mostly remained silent on the issue.
This parallels with the attitude of mainstream
Turkish national media, who have ignored the hunger
strike or reported it very lately and only
peripherally.
The individuals who join this two-day hunger strike
want to demonstrate their commitment to a cause that
is unquestionably just and right. The Kurdish people
in Turkey and abroad have been showing their support
to the hunger strikers and their demands through
various forms of protests and activities. Family
members of the strikers and other concerned people
have been alternately waiting in front of the
prisons to pressure the government to urgently
respond to the striker's demands in a humanist and
democratic manner.
As Kurds based in North America, we want to call on
the media outlets to practice humane and ethical
journalistic standards and not keep their eyes blind
and ears deaf on this serious matter. We also call
on all people of conscience to ask their public
authorities to put pressure on the Turkish
government so that it would comply with
international laws on human rights. Please reach
your political representatives,www.ekurd.net
Turkish consulates and embassies near you as well as
human rights organizations and encourage them to
take action before the hunger strikes result in
death or irreparable damage.
An awareness and sensitivity in international public
can save the lives of hunger strikes and contribute
to a peaceful settlement of the conflict by granting
the Kurds equal rights.
Please act now. Tomorrow may be too late.
Copyright
© 2012 Ekurd.net
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