Celebrations of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s birthday have been taking placed in guerrilla-held Medya Defense Zones, Southern Kurdistan despite intense aerial bombardments by the Turkish state. Several guerrillas have attended the celebrations, singing songs, joining Kurdish traditional dance halay and planting saplings.

Gülçiya Gabar of PAJK Coordination stated that “Today is the 69th birthday of Leader Apo. His birthday is a rebirth for the Kurdish people and mankind. It is the spring when resistance regains a meaning, spring of re-self knowledge and spring of peoples.”

Mentioning the Turkish invasion of Afrin and the resistance against invasion, Gabar said the following; “Just like the nature revives, people also revive themselves, their spirit and mind with the birth of the Leader on April 4. For this reason, the birthday of Leader Apo is as sacred as the birth of mankind. All our nature and lands of ours are under the attacks of Turkish fascism today. Afrin is the city of nature and women. Conspirators and occupant forces are carrying out a genocide in Afrin today, attacking and not tolerating olive trees even.”

Gabar continued; “Today, we plant trees for the nature destroyed in Afrin. We declare each woodland an Afrin. We will plant trees in all parts of Kurdistan. We will turn everywhere into Afrin. The Leader’s philosophy and spirit exists and will exist everywhere where there is nature and land. Our loyalty to the Leader will continue. We celebrate Leader Apo’s birthday for the mothers and fighters in Afrin, and all the fighters resisting the enemy in the battle field.”