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What was and is the aim of the capitalist modernity by upholding the isolation of the Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan? What do they want to reach by the system of torture that they have created?

The policy of isolation is the continuation of the international conspiracy with a different method and the insistence on the policy of a Kurdish genocide. The international conspiracy has been going on for nearly 25 years in the form of isolation. Although Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] and his concepts of a democratic nation and a democratic confederal system, as well as the social resistance that developed on the basis of these concepts, made the conspiracy fail, the insistence of the conspiratorial forces to succeed continues. The liquidation policy continues. The aim is to surrender Rêber Apo, the Kurdish Freedom Movement and the resisting Kurdish people. If they do not manage to surrender them, the aim is to liquidate the Leadership, the Movement and the people through a multifaceted policy of pressure, violence and isolation, and to achieve results with a total war of genocide. The policy of a Kurdish genocide is centered on Imrali is connected to the conspiratorial forces. The capitalist hegemonic system and its gendarme in the Middle East, the Turkish state, have been committing crimes against humanity for 25 years with the policy of torture and imprisonment because they have been unable to break Rêber Apo. The torture and isolation spreading from Imrali is an updated method in the Kurdish genocide.

Regarding the law of the Turkish state and the international law to which it is a signatory, everyone who is arrested and convicted, regardless of the grounds for arrest, has the right to meet with their lawyers and family. They have the right to use means of communication and to connect with the outside world. This right is guaranteed by law and the constitution. But the Turkish state has not applied its own law for 25 years. Not only does it not apply its own law, it also disregards international law. When Rêber Apo was first taken to Imrali, he was not allowed to meet with his lawyers for years with the ‘justification’ that the ship to bring people to the island was out of order and that there was bad weather. In recent years, meetings with the lawyer have been prevented because of so-called disciplinary penalties. Disciplinary penalties are a new product of the special warfare by the fascist genocidal Turkish state. With the demagogy of disciplinary penalties, it is trying to prevent Rêber Apo from exercising his right as it is granted in international law, also the right known as ‘right of hope’. In the member states of the Council of Europe, the ‘right to hope’ envisages the release of every convict who has been sentenced to life imprisonment and has been in prison for 25 years. The Turkish state, which is a member of the Council of Europe, prevents the implementation of this right under the name of disciplinary penalties. It is trying to make the world accept the policy of extermination spread over time by making the international laws it has signed meaningless, and to bring the Kurdish genocide war to a conclusion.

The genocidal Turkish state aims to break the will of the Kurdish people and take them into captivity through a torture and isolation system. It aims to develop disbelief and despair in the society and to create the perception that one cannot achieve anything with struggle and resistance. The genocidal fascism is afraid of Rêber Apo’s ideological and political stance, his power of thought, and is trying to break the effect Rêber Apo has on the outside world. The isolation policy is the result of the Kurdish genocide. The war against Rêber Apo is a war of genocide against the Kurdish people. Rêber Apo represtens the Kurdish people’s will for freedom. He is the address for a democratic solution to the so-called ‘Kurdish question’. Every approach against Rêber Apo must be seen as an approach against the Kurdish people and against the solving of the ‘Kurdish question’.

One of the essential dimensions of the isolation system is the political dimension. When we consider it from this perspective, how is the isolation reflected on the outside, how should the connection be established?

The system of isolation on Imrali is de facto at the center of the Kurdish genocide policy. The regime of special warfare on Imrali is not independent from the liquidation concept and Kurdish genocide policies against the Kurdish Freedom Movement. Since the Turkish state’s approach to the ‘Kurdish question’ is based on the policies of denial and extermination, there is a torture-isolation system on Imrali. The fascist AKP-MHP government, along with its policy of genocide, has turned the system of torture and isolation that is being practiced on Imrali into a political tool in its special warfare. It uses the system of isolation against Kurds and peoples as a tool of threatening. The AKP used the process of the so-called ‘peace talks’ developed between 2013 and 2015 as an instrument to completely dominate the state. In this sense, the war on Imrali is the product of a very planned, programmed, comprehensive and in-depth policy based on a long-term strategy. The most refined form of the centuries-old genocide policies is being carried out on Imrali. In this respect, it should be seen as purely ideological and political.

The Turkish state has completely abolished even its own state law in order to bring its Kurdish genocide plan to a conclusion. It has tied the judiciary to Erdoğan and put it under his command. This judiciary has become a political body that aims to genocide the Kurds. It has turned into a murderous tool that fulfills the instructions of the genocidal fascist administration, as it carries out a significant part of the war against the Kurds. This murderous tool cuts out the tongues of those who dare to open their mouths and makes those who object rot in the prisons. The fascist dictatorship is trying to intimidate and isolate the democratic opposition with the weapon of judiciary. Fascism, while carrying out political, social, cultural, economic, ecological and military genocidal attacks in Kurdistan, has also increased the pressure and violence on the society in Turkey with the understanding that the genocidal war will not be weakened. All these pressures originate from the genocide policy centered on Imrali.

The AKP-MHP coalition rule Turkey as a fascist dictatorship. They have not left even the smallest shred of democracy and law in place for fear that the Kurds might benefit from it. It has militarized a significant part of Turkish society, poisoning and rotting it with racist nationalism. The Convention of Turkishness, which was created on the basis of Kurdish enmity, has become the sole law and constitution of Turkey. Genocidal fascism has created a deep rift in society with the Turkish-Islamic synthesist ideology and imposed isolation on the conscience, morality and political stance of society. The fascist state wages war inside and outside, at home and abroad, at home and in the world to sustain its existence.

Did the fascist Turkish state and the international powers achieve the results they wanted with the international conspiracy and the subsequent 25 years of isolation, and if not, what are the reasons?

The isolation imposed on Rêber Apo for 25 years has resulted in nothing but great destruction for the peoples of Turkey. The isolation based on the policy of genocide has deepened the gap that needs to be overcome to find a solution to the ‘Kurdish question’ and has led Turkey completely away from democracy, justice and law. The policy of war has impoverished society, destroyed its moral and political values, created a deep decay in society, and consumed all the economic resources of the state. All of Turkey’s economic resources have been spent on the war against the Kurds. For 25 years bombs have been raining down on the mountains, plains and cities of Kurdistan. Tens of thousands of gangs and contras have been fed to shed Kurdish blood. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on spying. Billions of dollars are spent on weapons and lobbies to promote anti-Kurdish sentiment. Turkey is breaking records in drug use and sales. The reason for this is the Kurdish genocide war. With the drug trade, social decay is being developed on the one hand and war expenses are being met on the other. Turkey is one of the countries where gang organization develops the most and is even at the top of the world rankings. It wages war against the Kurds with all forms of gang organization. The main reason why the coup mechanism works continuously in Turkey is the lack of solution in the Kurdish policy based on denial and annihilation.

At the end of 25 years, the point reached is the fact that the isolation policy has not produced any result for the Turkish state and society except the destruction caused by the fascist dictatorship. The Turkish state wanted to surrender Rêber Apo through the isolation policy, but it failed. Rêber Apo’s resistance became spread in society and it got universalized. The Turkish state wanted to cut all the impact of Rêber Apo with its isolation policy, but it failed. Today, Rêber Apo’s ideas and theses are discussed all over the world, and he is seen and embraced as the only democratic solution to overcome social and systemic problems. The Turkish state, on the other hand, is isolated from the peoples of the world with its fascist character. The Turkish state aimed to break and surrender the will of the Kurdish people with its isolation policy, but it failed. The Kurdish people grew their resistance for freedom, and with the women’s revolution in Rojava, they became a hope for the peoples of the region and the world. With the slogan ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’, this hope brought free and democratic life closer to people and especially women all over the world. At the end of 25 years, the peoples and women won. The struggle for freedom developed, grew and became universal. It was the fascist Turkish state and the international conspiratorial forces that were exposed and regressed.

What is real and powerful is right and truth. Under the leadership of Rêber Apo, the Kurdish people are waging the most just and legitimate struggle in human history. Kurds, one of the most ancient peoples of history and the cultural stem cell of humanity as the people of the geography that created the neolithic society, want their language, culture, identity, freedom and self-government, which have been denied and ignored. They are waging a right and just struggle, which is as halal as the white milk of mothers. It cannot be destroyed by policies of denial, destruction and isolation. Human history shows us that truth has always triumphed over oppression and fascism.

The Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan is waging a historic resistance. How has this 25-year resistance on Imrali affected the Kurdish Freedom Movement and the Kurdish people?

Rêber Apo’s unshakable will and strength of endurance, created by his great passion and deep commitment to free life, has dramatically manifested itself on Imrali. Rêber Apo’s transformation of the conditions of torture and imprisonment on Imrali into an arena of struggle against the conspiratorial forces and the genocidal fascist Turkish state for 25 years has given the Kurdish Freedom Movement and our people a great moral strength as well as an invincible will, endurance and resistance power against all kinds of difficulties. Rêber Apo managed to create the power to struggle against difficulties, to overcome and succeed with consciousness, will and organized struggle in the Freedom Movement and our people. They themselves have thereby created great values by developing a great resistance according to the philosophy of Rêber Apo in the last 25 years. Kurds, under the leadership of the Freedom Movement, created the revolution in Rojava by fighting against the genocidal fascist Turkish state and its ally ISIS. The revolution in Rojava, marked by the basic pillars of women’s liberation and the practiced democratic nation, illuminated the darkness of the Middle East. It turned Kurdish women into the ideological and practical vanguard of the world women’s movement. The paradigm of democratic nation came to life with the revolution in Rojava. And the democratic free unity of the peoples brought forth the strategic alliance of the Kurdish-Arab peoples as a magnificent achievement of the democratic nation paradigm.

The resistance of Kurdish People’s Leader’s Abdullah Öcalan has undoubtedly affected the forces that carried out the conspiracy against him. From this perspective, what kind of an impact did the policies of the regional states and international powers, especially the Turkish state, face as a result of his resistance?

As I stated before, the aim of the conspiracy was to surrender Rêber Apo and liquidate the Kurdish Freedom Movement. This plan of the conspirators clearly failed. The resistance that developed around Rêber Apo and in his political philosophy frustrated all the calculations of the conspirators. Rêber Apo turned the system of Imrali, the system of torture and imprisonment into a great field of struggle. In the 25 years the struggle has grown a lot. Significant social and political developments and successful results emerged in Northern Kurdistan and Turkey. There was a revolution in Rojava. Inside and outside the country, the Kurdish struggle for freedom opened new channels of relations, multiplied the number of its international friends and developed tactical and strategic alliances. Rêber Apo’s democratic nation paradigm and the democratic confederal system were met with great interest in the global community. Especially the women’s liberation struggle dazzled everyone. The conceptualization of women’s science by Rêber Apo, Jineolojî, has become the center of attention worldwide, bringing the Kurdish women’s movement together with the women’s movements of the world and making it possible to form a universal movement. The ideological, political, organizational and military resistance of Kurdish women in the struggle against ISIS has made Kurdish women and the character of the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle globally recognized. During the ISIS attack on Kobanê, the resistance of the Kurds led by women raised the conscience of humanity. Undoubtedly, all these were very important developments.

The policy of the leadership led the genocidal fascist state to different searches and methods. The ruling AKP has developed a new tactic and turned to liquidation with a modified method of special warfare under the name of dialogue and solution. For years, with this method, it tried to deceive everyone inside and outside, to gather support and to completely dominate the state. It cannot be said that the AKP failed in this regard. Indeed, it succeeded in deceiving many circles and forces and dominated the state, establishing its own kind of state. Especially between 2013 and 2015, it developed a fierce process of special warfare under the name of the ‘solution process’. While waging such a special war against our struggle, they saw that the Freedom Movement was getting stronger on the basis of Rêber Apo’s new paradigm, they launched an all-out war process. For 8 years now, Turkey has been waging an apocalyptic war. The AKP is carrying out a policy of war at home and in the world, taking the MHP and all other remnants of the ‘Committee of Union and Progress’ with it. On the one hand, it wants to reach the borders of Misak-ı Milli [National Pact] through Kurdish genocide, on the other hand, it aims to realize the Turanist policy through a new Armenian genocide, to unite the Turkic states, and to seize the oil and gas of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Erdoğan wants to do, what Enver Pasha could not do in the early 20th century; he wants to build a Turanist empire through the Kurdish and Armenian genocide. With a neo-Ottomanist approach, the Turkish state invades North-East Syria, Rojava and South Kurdistan [Northern Iraq]. After 25 years of resistance along the lines of the leadership, Turkey has reached a complete dead end.

Kurdish hostility has plunged Turkey into a blind war. With its own hand, it is bombing the basic power dynamics that make Turkey exist. By wallowing in the illusion of ‘I am winning, I am achieving great success’, it is moving step by step towards a point that eliminates its raison d’être. Turkey is stuck between bottomless abysses on all four sides. It thinks that teetering on the edge of the abyss is ascension. It fails to see that it is putting its entire future in danger. Will a new Turkish century be created with a militarized, racist, nationalist delusional mob, an army that drops bombs on the Kurdish geography every other day and drools like rabid dogs? Will a country whose courtrooms and prisons are filled with Kurds, women, patriots, socialists and democrats rise or sink? What we know is that at the end of the day, fascist genocide will lose in the face of struggle and the peoples will win. Kurds will be liberated, and Turkey will be democratized.

In 25 years, there have been very serious developments in the region. The nation states of Iraq and Syria have disintegrated. In the face of popular resistance based on the idea of freedom and democracy, which has developed under the influence of the paradigm of the leadership and our freedom struggle, fascist nation-state systems will gradually dissolve and disintegrate in years and decades. The freedom demands of peoples and women will change the Middle East. The effects of this are already visible today. The repressive, prohibitive, denialist, monist-centralist fascist nation-states will eventually either have to change or collapse. The times of darkness are the closest to dawn. This is precisely the period of time that the region is currently experiencing. The states of the region, which are part of the International Conspiracy, are no longer as powerful as they once were. They have lost their dominance in the face of the demands of the peoples, women and youth for freedom and democracy. Increasing repression and violence will not stop this dissolution and disintegration. Conspiring against the Kurds and the peoples or taking part in conspiracy plans will not serve anything beyond accelerating their dissolution.

The conspiratorial forces continued to provide support to the genocidal Turkish state for the liquidation of the Movement for 25 years, even though they did not achieve their goals. The system of torture and isolation on Imrali is a system established by the conspiratorial forces. And the international powers played a major role in the establishment and maintenance of it. Although these powers are forced to form conjunctural alliances with the Kurdish resistance on the basis of their political and economic interests in the region, this does not change the real intentions and aims of these powers. As a matter of fact, their role in the continuation of the Imrali isolation and their support to the Turkish state in its invasion operations are obvious. These relations of the international conspiratorial powers with the Turkish state have revealed and exposed their true faces and brought about their weakening in the face of the peoples. Every year they will pay more and more for the crimes they committed against the Kurdish people in the conspiracy and their guilt will be exposed in all its dimensions before all humanity.

The resistance on Imrali has many dimensions; what are its ideological, paradigmatic, vital and physical dimensions?

Rêber Apo’s Imrali resistance is an ideological, political and social resistance. He was handed over to the Turkish state by an international conspiracy because he defended the free and democratic life of the Kurdish people and fought a great struggle for this cause. The reason why Rêber Apo was taken to Imrali is because of the values of freedom, equality, justice and democracy that he defends. His longing to create a new Middle East based on the brotherhood of peoples in the Middle East. He is being held under the torture and isolation system because he defends human values. Rêber Apo is defending the rights of peoples, women and all oppressed identities with a strong will under the torture conditions on Imrali and under all the methods of the special warfare. He is paving the way for the Middle East to break its dark fate and become a geography worthy of its history. Rêber Apo has been resisting with an extraordinary will for 25 years under conditions that even the most physically healthy person cannot endure for a few months. It is his great passion for a free people and free humanity that brings out this extraordinary resistance and resilience. It is the love of free life.

Rêber Apo is the theoretician and founder of the democratic socialist ideology. He is the ideologist, theoretician and practitioner of the democratic nation paradigm and the democratic confederal system. Rêber Apo brought a new interpretation and depth to socialist ideology. He created a paradigm and system of a non-power-state social system. Today, he became the new leader of socialism with his paradigm and ideology. He put forward the ideology and paradigm that societies can live by establishing their own democratic socialist self-governments outside the power-state, and this has been proven in the concrete of the revolution in Rojava. In this sense, he overcame the power-state handicap of all left-socialist movements struggling against the capitalist-imperialist system and the system of domination that reached its peak with its modernity, and revealed the correct perspective of free life and social system. Rêber Apo revealed the ideological, theoretical and practical fallacy of associating socialism with the phenomenon of power-state. He showed that there cannot be a socialist state and that those who advocate this thesis cannot create a successful socialist revolution, as seen in world examples. The paradigm put forward by Rêber Apo has brought a correct view of socialism, and today it is an agenda for discussion on a universal level and is being embraced by the world at large.