Washington Kurdish Institute
May 28, 2019
Leyla Guven, co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) and a democratically-elected Kurdish member of the parliament of Turkey from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), began a hunger strike on 8 November 2018, many months after being imprisoned for speaking out against the Turkish state’s aggression against the Kurdish people. The stated aim of her hunger strike was to end the isolation imposed upon imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Her hunger strike was later joined by prisoners within Turkey and activists worldwide, from southern (Iraqi) Kurdistan, to France, Wales, England, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Canada. By the beginning of this month, the hunger strikers numbered in the thousands.
On May 22, Ocalan’s lawyers visited the Kurdish leader on the prison island of Imrali, following a brief visit by a part of his legal team on May 2. After the May 22 visit, Ocalan’s lawyers issued a detailed statement concerning their visit and released a brief letter handwritten by Ocalan which was addressed to the hunger strikers, in which he stated that he expects the hunger strikes to come to an end, and expressed his “deepest affections and gratitude” to the activists.
After 200 days, Leyla Guven’s hunger strike came to an end, along with the hunger strike actions of thousands of others who demanded an end to the isolation of Ocalan. The hunger strike had achieved its goal and, in doing so, confirmed Ocalan’s role as the unavoidable interlocutor in any peace process. The press release issued by his lawyers following the May 22 visit mentioned Ocalan’s desire to play a positive role in bringing peace to Turkey and Syria, and it is undoubtable that, even after 20 years of imprisonment, he remains uniquely positioned to effect great changes in the region. With the isolation of Ocalan now broken by the hunger strikers, it remains to be seen if Turkey and others will seize the opportunity to engage with Ocalan, a leader who clearly has dedicated supporters among the Kurdish people, to bring increased stability to Turkey and the region.