SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Two French presidential candidates called for the release of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, a leftwing veteran who founded La France Insoumise, said the imprisonment of Ocalan “is unfair”, adding that he had been in jail almost as much as Nelson Mandela.
“For peace, it is necessary to release #Ocalan,” Melenchon said in a tweet on Tuesday.
Ocalan est en prison depuis 23 ans en Turquie. Presqu’autant que Mandela. C’est injuste. Pour la paix, il faut libérer #Ocalan.
— Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) February 15, 2022
France will vote over two rounds in April on whether to give President Emmanuel Macron a second five-year term or entrust a different candidate with the presidency.
The first round takes on April 10. Two candidates with the most votes will then face a showdown on April 24.
Separately, candidate Fabien Roussel, a journalist, said Ocalan had been imprisoned in defiance of international conventions.
“His release will open a path to peace in order to promote the progressive, feminist and ecological project of which the Kurds are carriers,” Roussel tweeted on Tuesday.
Le leader kurde, A.Ocalan est emprisonné depuis 24 ans au mépris des conventions internationales.
Sa libération permettra d’ouvrir un chemin vers la paix afin de promouvoir le projet progressiste, féministe et écologique dont les Kurdes sont porteurs.#freeocalan
— Fabien Roussel (@Fabien_Roussel) February 15, 2022
Ocalan is the founder and leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since he was captured in 1999.
Ocalan, jailed on the island of Imrali, played a significant role in a peace process between Turkish authorities and the PKK. Those talks and a ceasefire broke down in 2015, unleashing some of the worst violence since the insurgency began.
