Peloponnese Newsroom
Several thousand pro-Kurdish protesters marched today at noon in the center of Cologne, demanding the release of their historic leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who was arrested 25 years ago and remains imprisoned in Turkey.
A spokeswoman for the local police told AFP that “several thousand” people took part in the start of the rally. Organizers said they expected attendance to hover around 15,000. Germany is home to one of the largest Kurdish communities in the world as hundreds of thousands of Kurds or people of Kurdish origin live in the country.
Under the slogan “Freedom for Öcalan”, the demonstrators demanded the release of the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who is now 74 years old. Ocalan was arrested on February 15, 1999 and is being held on the prison island of Imrali, outside Istanbul, in almost complete isolation. His family has not heard from him since March 2021 and he last spoke to his lawyers in 2019.
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