Armenian Kurds rally to defend Ocalan

Armenian Second TV Channel
Dec 8 2009

Armenian Kurds rally to defend Ocalan

[Presenter over video of a protest] Armenia’s Kurdish community has
staged yet another protest. The Kurds call upon Turkey to stop
violence against them which is aimed at suppressing their national
liberation struggle. At the same time, the protest is aimed at drawing
the attention of the international community and European human rights
bodies to their problems and especially to Abdullah Ocalan. About
three weeks ago the leader of the Kurdish people was transferred to a
prison cell, which is twice as small as the previous one, is in a
basement, and there is no sunlight in it. Ocalan’s health has worsened
again.

Meanwhile, the Turkish authorities have promised the international
community to improve the prison conditions for their [Kurdish] leader
[Ocalan]. At the same time, there was a promise of speedy solution of
the Kurdish issue, which the Turkish authorities broke the same way as
the previous one.

[Video shows a protest, about 200 hundred people gathered in the
centre of Yerevan, swaying flags – a red flag with a yellow circle
that has a red star inside; green flag with a yellow sun which has a
red star inside; a two-coloured flag with an upper red line, a green
bottom line and a yellow sun in the middle; holding portraits of a
moustached man in a blue shirt against a yellow background.]

[Knyaz Hasanov, the head of the council of the Kurdish community in
Armenia, speaking to journalists near the site of the protest] In
Turkey, millions of Kurds take to the streets to defend their leader,
where they demand that the Kurdish issue be solved peacefully. Clashes
took place in all Kurdish-populated cities [in Turkey] yesterday [7
December] and many people were wounded and died in the clashes. Today
we, representatives of the Kurdish community, have gathered here to
defend our leader and to say that we call upon the Turkish authorities
to stop the bloodshed and pointless violence.

[translated from Armenian]