Fifty pro-Kurdish activists, including MPs, Monday began a hunger strike in Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey, to protest against the lack of information about the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan.
Activists complain of not having heard from the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for several months. “We have not received any objective information on the health and safety of Ocalan,” said Sabahat Tuncel, spokesman for the group.
Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned since 1999, is being held in the prison island of Imrali near Istanbul but was not allowed to receive visits nor his lawyers nor his family since the cease-fire between the PKK and Turkish security forces ended a year ago.
Dressed in T-shirts bearing the image of Öcalan, some activists shouted slogans in praise of their leader during the rally. “The strike will continue indefinitely,” he told AFP Ferhat ENCU, deputy of the pro-Kurdish party HDP, which is involved in the movement.
Sunday, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has denied any problem regarding the health and safety of Öcalan. “The subject is constantly operated by the separatist terrorist organization (PKK) and the public receives false information,” he said in a statement released by the pro-government agency Anadolu.
The strike comes as Ankara has intensified its fight against the PKK rebels in the southeast of the country. The last weekend, Turkish warplanes bombed positions of the separatist movement after the death of twenty soldiers in clashes with the PKK.