Full-page advertisement for Öcalan in Australian newspaper
A full-page advertisement has been published in the Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald under the headline "It's time: Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, Peace in Kurdistan".
A full-page advertisement for the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan and peace in Kurdistan has appeared in the daily newspaper "The Sydney Morning Herald". This is an initiative of the British trade unions Unite the Union and GMB, which have been running the "Freedom for Öcalan" campaign for some time and are spreading their call worldwide. The ad features a photo of delegates at the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Brighton in September 2019, expressively reiterating the campaign launched two years earlier.
The Sydney Morning Herald, which started its publication life in 1831, is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. According to a March 2020 data, the number of readers per day was over 11 million.
While 10 million 701 thousand of these are digital newspaper readers, the paper version sells 1,536 million.
The publication line of the newspaper, which is published daily in Sydney, is considered politically moderate.
The declaration recallS that Unite the Union, the largest union of Britain with 1.5 million members, and the GMB unions with 700,000 members participated in the campaign demanding the freedom of Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan who was kidnapped and taken into captivity on February 15, 1999 in defiance of the international laws.
The newspaper said that “Öcalan is not only an influential political figure who can solve the Kurdish problem but also has the idea of democratic confederalism that came to life in Rojava (North East Syria). Thanks to this model, Rojava has become a symbol of democracy and freedom in a region shaken by war. We also believe that the conflicts and tensions in the Middle East led by the Turkish government will come to an end when Abdullah Öcalan and other political prisoners are free. "
The "Freedom for Öcalan" campaign has long been led by UK unions, which have millions of members.
Unite The Union and GMB, the largest unions in Britain, launched a Freedom for Öcalan campaign in April 2016 with a joint decision. Many trade unions, which have hundreds of thousands of members, have also participated in the campaign over the time.
