LET LEYLA LIVE!

The growing political repression in Turkey continues to target all segments of the society, in the first place the Kurdish people.

Under the dictatorial regime put into practice by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party AKP, tens of thousands of people have been arrested or even killed by security forces in the last 3 years just because they think otherwise than Erdoğan. Thousands of people have been taken into custody for their social media posts or comments, while torture in detention centers or prisons has become part of the routine. Around 150 thousand were sacked from their jobs under emergency rule without the right to appeal the decisions. Thousands of people had to leave the country due to political repression and moved mainly to European countries.

Despite the huge crackdown on democratic rights and the attempts to silence the whole society, the peoples of Turkey do not submit to the regime and continue to wage a determined resistance. Women are leading the struggle. Tens of thousands of women took to the streets on 8 of March to defend “the right to live” against male violence, but faced police violence. While Erdoğan keeps repeating that he does not believe into gender equality, each day 4 women are killed by men in Turkey.

Leyla Güven is one of those women who courageously continues to resist the regime. She is one of the 67 MPs of Turkey’s third biggest party, HDP (People’s Democratic Party), elected in the elections of 24 June 2018. She became a candidate in the elections while she was in the prison and elected by receiving the %90 of the votes in her constituency.

HDP is a party that struggles for a democratic and peaceful solution of the biggest problem of the country, that is, the Kurdish question. The ex- co-presidents of the party, Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtaş and its 11 deputies are in prison. More than 3000 members of the party, including members of its leadership as well as its 96 mayors elected in the Kurdish region are also under custody.

Leyla Güven was arrested on 31 January 2018 and has been denied a release despite her being elected as an MP. Under very restricted conditions, especially without communication with the outside world, she started a hunger strike on 4 November 2018 to protest the isolation imposed on political prisoners.

Leyla Güven draws attention to the fact that the dictatorial regime in Turkey was built through massive detentions and isolation of the political prisoners from the rest of the society as well as repressing even the minimum democratic demands of the Kurdish community. She believes that the only possible way to break down these repressions and to open the way to democracy is to insist on a democratic and peaceful solution of the Kurdish question.

Güven thinks the way for a peaceful solution can only be opened by lifting the isolation imposed on the Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is denied visits from family members and his lawyers since the spring of 2015. Leyla Güven demands the end of the isolation, which is defined by many international conventions as torture. Güven demands that Turkey complies with these international conventions, which it has already ratified as well as with its own constitution, and lifts the isolation imposed on Öcalan.

Breaking the isolation system imposed on political prisoners, starting with the isolation of Öcalan, is the main condition for the development of democracy and peace in Turkey today. The development of democracy in Turkey and the solution of the Kurdish question has further dimensions concerning the peace in the Middle East as well as stability in Europe. The world has witnessed in the last years that unless the Kurdish question becomes solved in democratic and peaceful terms in Turkey, the civil war in Syria, which continuously produces new jihadist groups and thereby new migration waves, cannot be brought to a political solution.

Leyla Güven struggles not only for the people of Turkey but of the Middle East in general, for their equal, peaceful and free co-existence in their own lands. At the time of the defeat of ISIS, to achieve this peace is of utmost importance. This chance for peace should not be missed.

Leyla Güven and thousands of political prisoners resist against political repressions and isolation, and call on all of us to support their struggle for peace and democracy. Whereas Erdoğan and the AKP regime continues to close its eyes to the hunger strikes initiated by Güven and joined by thousands in Turkey’s prisons, European and Kurdish cities.

14 people, including politicians and journalist are on hunger strike in Strasbourg since 17 December 2018.
The hunger strikes in Turkey’s prisons started on 16 December 2018 with the participation of 30 political prisoners. They were joined by around 10 thousand prisoners on 1 March 2019. Some ex-MPs are also among the hunger strikers in the prisons, while 3 other HDP MPs started hunger strikes on 3rd of March in Diyarbakir/Amed. These people are resisting against the dictatorial regime by their bare bodies. And they have a single demand: Lift the isolation, allow Öcalan to speak to his lawyers and give peace a chance!

We see the demand of Leyla Güven and the other hunger strikers as a basic democratic demand and make it our own. We see ourselves responsible to contribute to the struggle of the Kurdish people and democratic forces of Turkey for democracy, human rights, justice and peace.

In solidarity with the hunger strikers, we, individuals and organisations originating from Turkey and Kurdistan as well as Belgian progressive and anti-facists individuals and organisations gathered together in the platform Let Leyla Live .

We defend Leyla Güven’s and other hunger strikers’ right to live and support their demands. We call on all the concerned Belgian and European institutions and politicians to hear the voice of Leyla Güven and to take concrete actions, addressing the Turkish government to demand that she lives. We call on the Belgian public to be in solidarity with this struggle for democracy and peace.