PUBLIC EVENT: STAND UP FOR THE HDP AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

ATUC is supporting this important event and will be joining our SSK, STUC and Trades Council comrades on the night to hear from Fayik Yagizay of HDP. Join us!

STAND UP FOR THE HDP AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Wednesday 14th April at 7pm

To join the Zoom discussion register here https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYlcOyrrTopGtThLdbKkIAEQVgBF6vkMAl_ 

The meeting will also be livestreamed on:

www.facebook.com/ScottishSolidaritywithKurdistan

 

ATUC statement: Solidarity with Turkish and Kurdish sisters and brothers

Aberdeen Trades Union Council (ATUC) notes with concern the most recent attacks in Turkey on human rights protections and democratic processes. 

In recent weeks, the chief prosecutor of Turkey’s top court of appeal opened a case to close down the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), only hours after the Erdoğan-controlled parliament improperly expelled an HDP deputy. 

Then on March 19th, President Erdogan announced he was withdrawing Turkey from the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (known as the Istanbul Convention), describing it as contrary to ‘family values’. 

Aberdeen Trades Union Council condemns these recent events in the strongest possible terms. Human Rights Watch reports that ‘The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is dismantling human rights protections and democratic norms in Turkey on a scale unprecedented in the 18 years he has been in office’, and most governments around the world have so far failed to respond in any meaningful way. 

ATUC stands in solidarity with our Turkish and Kurdish sisters and brothers as they resist the actions of Erdoğan and his reactionary regime and we urge trade unionists everywhere to join us.

ABERDEEN TRADES UNION COUNCIL URGES ACTION FOR KURDISH HUNGER STRIKERS - PRESS RELEASE

At their monthly meeting, Aberdeen Trades Union Council (ATUC) delegates voiced their support for the hundreds of Kurds currently on indefinite hunger strike, and demanded action to end the isolation of Kurdish political leader Abdullah Öcalan with the following statement;

‘Aberdeen Trades Union Council (ATUC) stands with our Kurdish comrades currently on indefinite hunger strike, and echoes their call for an end to the isolation of Kurdish political leader Abdullah Öcalan, incarcerated on the Turkish prison island of İmralı for the past 20 years. Such isolation is deemed a form of torture, outlawed by international law. ATUC calls on the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to carry out its fundamental duty and visit Öcalan in prison. We also call on our elected representatives to do all in their power to see that pressure is put on Turkey to comply with human rights legislation.

Furthermore, we recognise the respect with which Öcalan is held by millions of Kurds who regard him as their leader; the hugely progressive impact of his ideas on women’s rights, democracy, and multi-ethnic society; and the vital role that he can play in negotiating a peaceful settlement between the Kurds and the Turkish Government.

International solidarity and action were required to end South African apartheid and see Nelson Mandela lead his people to freedom and justice after decades of imprisonment on Robben Island. The Kurdish people in their struggle for justice demand no less from us – and they demand justice for their imprisoned leader, locked in isolation in his island prison.’

Call for action to end isolation in Turkish prison of Kurdish leader

ATUC Secretary, Fiona Napier, is calling for action in support of the Kurdish men and women on indefinite hunger strike, all with the same single demand – for Turkey to end the isolation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, incarcerated for the last 20 years in a Turkish prison on the island of İmralı.  

The hunger strikers in Strasbourg: Kurdish Democratic Society Congress-Europe co-chair Yüksel Koç, HDP Urfa former MP Dilek Öcalan, Kurdish politician Mustafa Sarıkaya and journalist Gülistan Çiya İke, Nurgül Başaran, Ramazan İmir, Mehmet Nimet Sevim, Mohamad Ghaderi, Denis Durgut, Ayvaz Ece, Kardo Bokani, Kerem Solhan, Agit Ural and Ekrem Yılmaz.(Photo courtesy of ANF News)

On 23^rd January, Fiona, along with Sarah Glynn (Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan)  travelled to Strasbourg with messages of solidarity for the 14 Kurdish men and women currently in week six of a hunger strike calling for an end to Ocalan's isolation. 

  

Originally sentenced to death in 1999, Öcalan had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penalty as part of its bid to be admitted to membership of the European Union. Since 1999, he has been held on İmralı, frequently in isolation and routinely denied family visits and access to his lawyer. This isolation has intensified over the past decade, and Öcalan has not been allowed to see his lawyer since 2011. These are conditions that contravene both Turkey’s own constitution, and the European Convention on Human Rights. 

The current mass hunger strike began on November 7^th, 2018, when Leyla Güven (a Turkish MP imprisoned in January 2018 following her vocal criticism of the Turkish invasion of Afrin) announced the start of her hunger strike in court, during the third hearing of her case.