Rallies were held in Gadigal Country/Sydney and Naarm/Melbourne on February 15, calling for the release of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan who has been imprisoned in Turkey for the last 27 years.
The rally in Gadigal Country was addressed by Kurdish community leaders as well as former Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and Peter Boyle from the Socialist Alliance.
“Abdullah Öcalan has spent 27 years in prison, most of it in cruel isolation which is a form of torture under international law,” Boyle said.
“South African liberation movement leader Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. Öcalan, who is seen as the ‘Mandela of the Kurds’ deserves to be freed not just on humanitarian grounds but because his freedom will advance the struggle for just peace in the region.
“The same imperial powers that conspired to abduct Öcalan in Kenya on February 15, 1999, conspired earlier this year to enable the Syrian army and allied militias to attack Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods.
“This has forced the retreat of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to avoid a greater genocidal war.”
Ludlam said: “This rally is magnified a thousand fold in Europe, in Latin America, in North America and in East Asia. They say that the Kurds have no friends. No, we have friends everywhere. Stay strong, stay loud and stay visible.”