The Kurdish artist and activist Mazlum Dora, who is imprisoned in the Stuttgart correctional facility (JVA), has ended his hunger strike after almost fifty days. Dora said on Wednesday that he had started eating again, the Özgür Politika newspaper reported on Thursday, citing a friend of the 43-year-old who visited him in prison in Stuttgart-Stammheim. "I have stopped my hunger strike following the KCDK-E’s appeal," Dora’s said in a statement.

In April of this year, Mazlum Dora was sentenced to three years and three months in prison by the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court (OLG) for membership in the PKK. His arrest in May 2021 came shortly after a visit to Germany by then Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

Dora had been on hunger strike since 21 September to protest the interpretation of his political and cultural activities as a criminal offense under Section 129b, the repression of Kurdish institutions and against the mistreatment of Kurdish political prisoners and his degrading treatment in the Stuttgart prison.

Dora was given a disciplinary penalty a few months ago because he had resisted being led into the courtroom handcuffed during the ongoing proceedings.

Dora even set himself on fire in his cell to protest against the mistreatment he had been submitted to. Prison staff intervened to put off the fire and he received medical treatment. But on the grounds that the Kurd had endangered the lives of surrounding prisoners and damaged public property with his actions, Dora was sentenced to a fine of one thousand euros and two years and three months in prison on 20 September, one day before going on hunger strike. The defense has appealed the April verdict and objected to the additional prison sentence. Both have not yet been decided about.

At the end of October, the Kurdish European umbrella organization KCDK-E called on Dora to end the hunger strike. "Mazlum Dora has become the voice of numerous prisoners in German prisons. As KCDK-E, we are of the opinion that he has created attention with his hunger strike and it therefore makes sense for him to end his action and continue his fight on other levels," said the call from the umbrella organization of Kurdish associations in Europe. Dora already weighed less than fifty kilograms.

In his message, the artist himself said: "I will continue to fight for the Kurdish language, culture and art, just as I have done in the past. From now on, I will enforce the demands that I put forward with the hunger strike on a legal level." Dora thanked all the people who supported him during his protest.