Thousands of protesters marched in Cologne today demanding the release of Kurdish PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, 25 years after he was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey, amid a period of apparent appeasement between the Turkish government and the PKK.
In late October, the head of the Nationalist Action Party (AHP) and a government partner of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Devlet Bakhceli, hinted that his party would agree to Ocalan’s conditional release if he publicly repudiated in the National Assembly the armed action and call on PKK members to surrender their weapons. At the same time, the Turkish authorities allowed for the first time after 43 months the imprisoned leader of the PKK to receive a visit to the island of Imrali in the Propontis, where he has been held for the last 25 years.
In fact, at the end of October, Erdogan said that he was “extending his hand to the Kurdish brothers”.
This afternoon, demonstrators marched through the center of Cologne, holding placards with the main slogan “Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan” along with the image of the founder and historical leader of the PKK.
During the demonstration, Cologne police, who counted “thousands of protesters”, reported no tensions.
Police forces stopped the march twice after spotting “symbols that could be related to the PKK, which is prohibited,” a municipal police spokeswoman told AFP. The symbols will be analyzed in the coming days.
The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, and the public display of symbols of the Kurdish organization is prohibited in Germany.
Despite confinement and silence, the one his followers call “Apo” or “Serok” (“uncle” and “leader”, in Kurdish) continues to embody the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, where the conflict between the PKK and the state it has left more than 40,000 dead since 1984.
Apo’s aura also continues in Europe, where Kurdish refugees year-round wave flags and placards with Ocalan’s face with a thick black moustache.
Turkey is the third country of origin for asylum seekers in Germany this year, after Syria and Afghanistan, according to interior ministry figures. Most of the applicants say they belong to the Kurdish minority, according to German newspaper FAZ.
GS
