Calls for the immediate release of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah öcalan reverberated through the Rajya Sabha, India's upper house of parliament. Aneel Hegde, an influential member of the Janata Dal (United) party, delivered an impassioned speech urging India's top ministers to intervene in Öcalan's 24-year solitary confinement on Turkey's İmralı island. The Rajya Sabha, India’s upper [...]

Denouncing the violence she suffered at the hands of the police, journalist Elfazi Toral said: "They repeatedly punched me in the heart, attacked me with kicks, and subjected me to strip search." Elfazi Toral was taken into custody in Istanbul last week while covering a public press conference organized by the provincial association of the HEDEP (Peoples’ Equality and Democracy [...]

HEDEP Spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan announced that the acronym of the party will be changed to "DEM Party". The Green Left Party, which ran in the Turkish elections in place of the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party), which was threatened to be banned, renamed itself HEDEP (Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party) in October. In November, the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the [...]

Human rights organisations called on the government in Ankara to abandon its policy of violence and resolve the Kurdish question. The Human Rights Association (IHD) promoted demonstrations in numerous cities in Turkey and northern Kurdistan to mark the 75th anniversary of the UN Human Rights Charter. The organisations called on the Turkish government to take a democratic and civilised step [...]

As part of the international campaign, 10 December was designated ‘Global Öcalan Books Day’, which is joined by masses all around the world. On 10 October, a new international campaign called "Freedom for Öcalan – A Political Solution to the Kurdish Question" was launched with press conferences in 74 places around the world, from France, to Belgium, from Italy to the Spanish state, [...]