Skip to main content
Maxine Peake joins trade unionists' calls to free Abdullah Ocalan
The actor, who recently went on a delegation to Turkey, said meeting hunger-striking Kurdish MP Leyla Guven was ‘inspiring but harrowing’
Maxine Peake Labour and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn during a photocall after delivering the Alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, in August 2018

MAXINE PEAKE and trade union leaders demanded freedom for imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and for solidarity with hundreds of hunger strikers across Turkey today.

The award-winning actor spoke at length about her experience on a recent delegation to Turkey at a London press conference.

Bringing attention to the plight of the left-wing MP Leyla Guven, who has been on hunger strike since November, Ms Peake said that it was “inspiring but harrowing” to meet Ms Guyven, who was “so ill but so full of life and determination.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
IRON HEEL: Police officers storm Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) headquarters in Ankara on Sunday
Features / 26 May 2026
26 May 2026

CLAUDIA WEBBE looks at how Britain’s Nato ally has upped the stakes in its effort to silence domestic dissenting voices

ETHNIC STRIFE: Women condemn, yesterday, a video in circulation that allegedly shows a fighter affiliated with the Syrian government holding the braid of a Kurdish female fighter after killing her, in Qamishli, northeastern Syria
Middle East / 23 January 2026
23 January 2026

VIJAY PRASHAD details how US support for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa allowed him to break the resistance of the autonomous Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)

Republican People's Party or (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel delivers a speech during a CHP convention, in Ankara, Sunday, April 6, 2025
Authoritarianism / 1 July 2025
1 July 2025