On Saturday (October 30), Solidarity with OTHERS organized a demonstration at the Luxembourg Square in Brussels, in front of the European Parliament, to urge the Turkish authorities to immediately release Ayşe Özdoğan, an end-stage cancer patient jailed in Turkey for alleged links to the Gülen movement.
The demonstration was not only about Ayşe Özdoğan but also about what she represents: the Turkish authorities' flagrant and systematic disregard of the right to life of political political prisoners, which has become one of the ways to intimidate the government's critics who are still outside prison.
The demonstrators who responded to our call to action, as well as Belgian Senator Simone Susskind who joined the demonstration, spoke up for the immediate release of all critically ill political prisoners, most notably Ayşe Özdoğan, Mehmet Emin Özkan, Aysel Tuğluk and Yusuf Bekmezci.
Our statement in English:
Senator Susskind's speech: