Thousands of Kurds rally in Turkey to demand Ocalan's release

Several thousand Kurds gathered in southeastern Turkey to call for the release of Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned founder of the PKK, pressing their case at a delicate moment — more than a year into a historic process that has seen the group lay down its arms after four decades of conflict.

Hannah Brooks June 29, 2026 at 6:05 AM

Several thousand people rallied in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey to demand the release of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Al Jazeera reported. Crowds chanted in Kurdish, including the slogan "Serok Apo" — "Leader Apo" — in support of the 77-year-old, who has been held on the prison island of Imrali since 1999.

A "Freedom Rally"

The demonstrations were part of a series of "Freedom Rally" events held over the weekend by the pro-Kurdish People's Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which has played a role in ongoing peace efforts, according to coverage of the gatherings. The party framed its demands around two linked goals: Ocalan's freedom and a broader democratic settlement of Turkey's long-running Kurdish question.

Who Ocalan is

Ocalan is among the most divisive figures in Turkish and Kurdish politics. He founded the PKK, which fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state and which Turkey, the United States and the European Union all designate a terrorist organization. To many Kurds, however, he is a revered political and ideological leader. He was captured in 1999 and has spent more than two decades in isolation on Imrali, in the Sea of Marmara.

A conflict winding down

The rallies come at a pivotal juncture. In early 2025, Ocalan called on the PKK to disband and give up its weapons; the group announced its dissolution and, later that year, began a disarmament process — a remarkable turn in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. For the Kurdish political movement, Ocalan's release, or at least an easing of his confinement, is bound up with cementing that peace; supporters argue that with the armed struggle abandoned, the state should reciprocate with political steps.

Where things stand

Ocalan has recently been granted somewhat greater access to his family, lawyers and pro-Kurdish lawmakers involved in the talks, but his detention conditions remain largely unchanged, and there is no indication the Turkish state is preparing to free him. Ankara has signaled a willingness to advance a settlement of the Kurdish issue through new legislation, while treating Ocalan's imprisonment as a separate legal matter tied to his conviction. That gap — between a political settlement and the fate of the man at its symbolic center — remains one of the central tensions as the process inches forward.