Urgent Appeal: Support the demands of the Kurdish Hunger Strikers in Turkey!

“The hunger strikes constitute an indication that the Kurdish issue has reached an intolerable level!” – Metin Bakkalci, head of the Human Rights Foundation in Turkey

Demonstrate outside 10 Downing St, London: 12 noon Wed 24^th Oct 2012.

Hundreds of Kurdish political internees, incarcerated for campaigning for Kurdish rights in Turkey are on day 43 of possibly the biggest political hunger strike in history to pressurise the Turkish government to begin political negotiations to resolve the Kurdish Question in Turkey.

For nearly 80 years the Kurds in Turkey have suffered the most intolerable oppression. Forcibly assimilated to be Turks they had their language banned and culture eradicated. The hunger strike represents a long and painful struggle for justice and identity by the Kurds in Turkey reaching its zenith.

In 2009 the Turkish state engaged in talks with the PKK to attempt to resolve the Kurdish issue. Unfortunately, these talks were abruptly brought to an end by the Turkish government and stalled.

The two central demands of the hunger strikers are as follows:

Please add your voice to these demands and show your solidarity with the interned Kurdish hunger strikers in Turkey. We urgently request that you do everything in your power to apply political pressure on the Turkish government to solve the Kurdish Question, release these political prisoners so Turkey can finally begin to solve it’s longest standing political problem. Tomorrow may be too late!