Reportage
Thousands march in Rome for Ocalan, ‘a light in the tunnel’
Saturday, February 15 marked the 26th anniversary of Ocalan's capture in Nairobi, and, as they do every year, people took to the streets in many places around the world, calling for his release.
It’s no accident that one could see the Amazigh, Kurdish, Mapuche and Palestinian flags flying above Saturday’s march in Rome for the release of Abdullah Ocalan.
These are the flags of peoples who have been struggling for centuries for self-determination from direct and indirect forms of colonialism. And this is precisely what lies at the heart of the project that the PKK leader envisioned and Middle Eastern Kurdish communities have been building piece by piece, at both a theoretical and practical level: not just passive coexistence among peoples, but sharing together the tools of direct democracy.
Saturday, February 15 marked the 26th anniversary of Ocalan's capture in Nairobi, and, as they do every year, people took to the streets in many places around the world, calling for his release. In Rome, the march – with an attendance in the thousands – set off from the Circus Maximus and arrived at Ararat, the center founded by the Kurdish community after the experience of “Piazza Kurdistan,” the solidarity encampment that rose up during the two months the PKK founder spent in Rome. The events were recalled from the stage by Erol Aydemir from Ararat, a “place that resisted every attempt at eviction ... the generosity shown by Ocalan is our strength.”
The microphone then passes to the many organizations that have joined the demonstration, alongside the organizers (Ararat, Kurdistan Network and the Kurdistan Information Office in Italy – UIKI). Among these we find the Communist Refoundation party, ANPI, the COBAS union, the +Europa party, Lucha y Siesta, the Democratic Jurists, social centers and students. At Porta San Paolo, the microphone passes to ANPI, the anti-fascist partisans’ association: “The Italian resistance was born here. We always stand with the peoples fighting for self-determination. You are a light in this tunnel of wars and exploitation.”
“We need a political solution to the Kurdish issue,” says Yilmaz Orkan of UIKI. ”At the end of the month, Ocalan will ask Turkey to find a solution without conflict.” A long-awaited message is planned from the leader of the movement, at a time when democratic confederalism in the Middle East is up against existential challenges.
On Saturday, a delegation from the Turkish-Kurdish Dem party arrived in Iraq's Kurdistan region, where it was set to meet with leaders Barzani and Talabani as part of the new regional dialogue originating from Imrali, the island-prison where Ocalan is being held.
In Damascus, however, tensions are rising: the new government has excluded the Northeast Syria Autonomous Administration from the National Dialogue Committee, invoking the fact that the self-defense units have not laid down their weapons. This pretext ignores the fact that the SFD are ready to be integrated into the new Syrian army, provided that the democratization process truly involves all the peoples of the country and is based on respect for the rights of women and local communities.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/una-luce-nel-tunnel-migliaia-a-roma-per-ocalan on 2025-02-16