International support for the hunger strikes that continue in prisons in Turkey and Kurdistan as well as many cities throughout the world demanding an end to the isolation imposed upon Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Ocalan continues to increase.

Die Linke candidates for the European Parliament elections to be held on May 26 issued a joint statement calling on the Federal Government, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and the European Commission.

The statement prepared under the lead of Murat Yilmaz was signed by Die Linke candidates Ozlem Demiral, Cornelia Ernst, Helmut Scholz, Martina Michels, Claudia Haydt, Malte Fiedler, Marianne Kolter, Sahra Mirow, Keith Barlow, Katrin Flach-Gomez, Anna-Maria Duerr, David Schwarzendahl, Florian Wilde, Camila Cirlini, Eric Bourguignon.

CALL TO “PRESSURE TURKEY”

The candidates said Turkey should be pressured to end the unlawful practices in prisons and stated that action must be taken at once to end the isolation, which is what the hunger strikers demand. Die Linke politicians said the activists’ health is at a critical stage and called on the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to take action to end the isolation imposed upon Ocalan in Imrali.

Die Linke candidates said Turkey must end the human rights violations in prisons as per the international treaties the country has signed and added that former HDP Co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, as well as other imprisoned HDP and DBP members and opposition members from various groups must be released.

The candidates also criticized HDP’s mayors elect not being given their mandates after the March 31 elections and pointed to the conditions mandated by the European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, stating that the Turkish government must give the elected mayors their mandates as required by the Venice Commission and the country’s membership to the Council of Europe.