ABDULLAH OCALAN today has another birthday in prison. For 21 years the leader of the Kurdish people has been confined, isolated and denied elementary human rights. 

Ocalan’s imprisonment is an indictment not just of the Turkish state but of European and international authorities.  

Physically, he has been contained, but the power of his thought, the lessons he has learned and the lessons he has imparted resonate around the world.

By capturing Ocalan the Turkish state and its fellow conspirators hoped to subdue the Kurdish people, but they have continued to resist and develop their struggle. 

Their influence is growing amid the suffering and sacrifice of the Kurds and all the peoples of the Middle East.  

Over the years it becomes all the more apparent that the imprisonment of Ocalan and the suppression of the Kurdish people are interlinked. 

So it is that freedom for Ocalan and democracy and peace for the Kurds are tied together. 

Freedom for Ocalan is integral to the beginning of a resolution of the interminable conflict throughout the Middle East.

Ocalan’s ideas and his analysis of the world we live in give profound insights into the dilemmas we collectively face. 

Now, more than ever, we need those insights and that analysis to help us to restore humanity and heal our relationship to nature.

The Turkish government has demonstrated that it is a volatile and dangerous element in the Middle East. 

The oppression with which it treats the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and anywhere is now directed against much of Turkish society. 

All opposition and criticism is suppressed and criminalised. Any expression of Kurdish self-representation is pounced on and mayors and elected representatives are jailed. 

The chauvinistic and racist domestic policies are turned abroad with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan resorting to threats and extortion as his foreign-policy posture. 

The Turkish state’s war on the Kurds mutates into hostility directed across the region and into the eastern Mediterranean.  

The lack of resolution of the Kurdish conflict is not only a major factor contributing to the country’s crisis — it is in large part the main source of that crisis. 

The aim to eliminate the independent Kurdish political movement was the prime motive behind Turkey’s fateful intervention in Syria, but this policy has failed. 

It has not brought any lasting security to the country, as Erdogan has insisted. It has, in fact, destabilised the region and fuelled regional conflicts.

Repression against the Kurds has continued, directed by Erdogan and his refusal to adopt a conciliatory approach. 

His lack of vision stands in stark contrast to the visionary approach adopted by Ocalan.  

Ocalan has repeatedly sought to achieve a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish question in Turkey and the Middle East. 

Turkish governments have rejected his approaches and search for reconciliation. This attitude has brought nothing but war and misery.

We will celebrate Abdullah Ocalan’s birthday with the Kurdish people and by reaffirming his vital role in the search for peace and the central importance of his political ideas for meeting the enormous global crisis that we are all confronting today. 

Ocalan’s life and his spirit of resistance are an inspiration. They are an inspiration for the Kurdish people and for all who want to see peace and democracy, growth and harmony.

If we are to go forward Abdullah Ocalan will be freed.  

For more information about Peace in Kurdistan visit peaceinkurdistancampaign.com.