MUNICH – The left-wing newspaper Junge Welt published an interview with climate activist Paula Becker (name changed), who is active in the Anti-Capitalist Climate Meeting in Munich, and who is dealing with the accused activists who were sentenced for hanging up a picture of Chairman Abdullah Öcalan with the demand “Free Öcalan”. This practice of criminalizing the PKK freedom movement and its chairman Rêber Apo has been intensified in Germany for a long time and has led to killings on the open street by the German police in the past, such as in the case of Halim Dener. Now internationalist activists are being targeted and attempts are being made to dissuade them from their solidarity and support of the freedom movement through the means of repression.
The interview read as follows:
In Munich, several climate activists have been fined in recent weeks for protesting the International Motor Show, IAA, in September 2021. What crimes are they alleged to have committed?
The three defendants were sentenced under Section 20 of the Law on Associations. They are accused of hanging a poster with a picture of Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, and the inscription “Free Ocalan” on the fence of the protest camp against the IAA. This was considered a violation of the ban on activities to which the PKK is subject in this country.
What is the connection between the IAA and the imprisoned PKK leader Öcalan? It is not necessarily obvious at first glance.
A central component of climate camps is to deal with alternative models of society in order to see how we can get out of this capitalist mania for profit and growth. The Kurdish freedom movement is a good example of this and gives many younger people hope for feminist and ecological liberation struggles. Through lectures and workshops, the participants of the protest camp against the IAA therefore wanted to learn more about the struggles in Kurdistan.
Shouldn’t a likeness of the Kurdish mastermind with the inscription “Free Öcalan” be considered an expression of opinion? This has often been the case in comparable cases in the past.
Actually, it was, since “Free Öcalan” refers only to the imprisonment and there was no PKK reference on the poster. It was about the freedom of a political prisoner who has been in solitary confinement for 23 years. It is also absurd that the only other person whose pictures may not be shown in public in the Federal Republic is Adolf Hitler. Hitler stands for an inhuman system. Öcalan, on the other hand, as a pioneer of democratic confederalism, has made an important contribution to building a democratic-ecological society. The court, however, did not address this and instead insisted on high penalties. This shows once again that the German judiciary is making itself the accomplice of the interests of the AKP regime in Turkey.
How high were the sentences ultimately?
The three defendants were sentenced to 30 daily fines of 60 euros each or 30 daily fines of 20 euros each and, in the case of a minor, to three counseling sessions.
Will they accept this sentence or appeal?
This sentence is absurdly high compared to other cases. Moreover, there is no solid evidence that the defendants actually violated the law on associations. The convicted and their defense counsel agree: they will not put up with this, they will appeal. They have probably learned this resistance from the Kurdish freedom movement.
In the recent past, there have also been positive verdicts in Munich regarding the wearing of flags of the Kurdish People’s and Women’s Defense Units (YPG and YPJ), which had been banned for years. Do you expect the courts to change their minds in the medium term in this case as well, perhaps in higher instances?
That remains to be seen and is also related to larger geopolitical developments. At the moment, Turkey is experiencing a new recognition at the diplomatic level because it is posing as an “honest broker” between Russia and Ukraine. This is bullshit, of course, but it may have implications for the persecution of Kurds, the display of Kurdish symbols, and solidarity supporters in Germany. Just as the NATO accession negotiations of Finland and Sweden will not mean anything good for Kurds in these countries.
