In Düsseldorf the action week for Abdullah Öcalan was concluded with a demonstration this Saturday. The central demand of the initiative, which was launched on Monday in front of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament, is the immediate release of the PKK leader. In view of the situation in Kurdistan and Turkey, this is in any case an indispensable prerequisite for a political and democratic solution to the conflicts in the region, say the activists.

The demonstration began in front of the DGB building on the central Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse and continued under a sea of flags with Öcalan's image to Corneliusplatz Square. The demonstration began with speeches by the co-chairs of Kurdish umbrella organizations. Engin Sever of the North Rhine-Westphalia-wide federation FED-MED was the first to speak, emphasizing right at the beginning that Kurdish society is determined to resist a "new edition of the international conspiracy" at all levels. Kurds refer to the phase from October 9, 1998 to February 15, 1999 as the international conspiracy. In the course of this period, Abdullah Öcalan was first declared persona non grata in Syria due to international pressure, before he embarked on a 130-day odyssey through Europe for a peace process, and was finally kidnapped in Kenya's capital Nairobi and taken to Turkey in violation of international law.

The co-chair of the European-wide umbrella organization KCDK-E, Yüksel Koç, addressed the international support given to the liberation struggle of the Kurdish people and the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan. "The 'Freedom for Öcalan' initiative of the British trade unions and the letter-writing campaign to the United Nations launched in South Africa by the trade union confederation COSATU are just recent examples of the solidarity with our resistance and support for our demand for freedom for Abdullah Öcalan," Koç said.

Keziban Doğan of the women's umbrella organization YJK-E addressed the "100 Reasons to Prosecute the Dictator" campaign. A petition launched for this purpose on November 25 on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women aims to have Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan indicted before the UN as responsible for the Turkish regime's policies that are contemptuous of women and to have feminicides recognized internationally as crimes against humanity. The petition can still be supported online until Women's Day on March 8.

Greetings from PYD, HBDH, TEKO-JIN

After greetings from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Turkish-Kurdish alliance People's United Revolutionary Movement (HBDH) and the Young Combatant Women's Movement (TEKO-JIN) were read out, the march began to move. During the 1.1-kilometer-long route, the participants repeatedly shouted the central slogan "The time has come - freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, peace in Kurdistan". Among the participants were also many people from internationalist and anti-fascist structures.

During the six-day action week in Düsseldorf, Kurdish politicians and activists presented Öcalan's thoughts every day at a different place between 12 and 5 pm. The program was accompanied by musicians from TEV-ÇAND. Member organizations of FED-MED from all over North Rhine-Westphalia participated in the action.