Syrian, Egyptian figures join "I Want to Meet Ocalan" campaign

As part of the international campaign "I Want to Meet Abdullah Ocalan," Syrian and Egyptian figures announced their joining the campaign and expressed their desire to meet the leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned in Imrali prison since 1999. The participants included the Egyptian writer and journalist Islam Deif, and the Syrian writer, journalist and novelist Nabil al-Mulhem.

In the same context, the signature collection campaign launched by the Syrian Initiative for the Leader Abdullah Ocalan's Freedom, in coordination with the Syrian Lawyers' Initiative to Defend Ocalan on August 20, 2025, continued, where around 2,000 Syrian figures;intellectuals, academics, politicians, community leaders, and clans' elders announced their joining the campaign.

The Syrian artist Samih Shuqair also participated in thecampaign, as he sent a message of solidarity, in which he affirmed his support for the freedom of the leader Abdullah Ocalan alongside his intellectual and political role in promoting peace and democracy in the Middle East.

These contributions, made possible through messages published on the initiative's official website, affirming the international solidarity movement which demands the freedom of the leader Abdullah Ocalan and his role in promoting a just peace process in the region.

Samih Shuqair's message

The Syrian artist praised the leader Abdullah Ocalan's ideas, considering him an extension of a struggle similar to the experiences of Nelson Mandela, Marwan al-Barghouthi, and other symbols of freedom. He said, "We stand a historical instant of obeisance to witness the revival of the revolution against tyranny and oppression, and the revival of freedom for the uprising peoples who were deprived of their will in the Middle East, through the figure of the thinker and philosopher Abdullah Ocalan and the propositions he presented to the world from his cell in Imrali. He has become a researcher, thinker, and philosopher representing the people's will for what philosophy in addition to science of democratic and ethical politics he provided."

Islam Deif's message

He focused on the conditions of the leader Abdullah Ocalan's detention and the Kurdish people'scircumstances, saying that the leader has transformed into a "global thinker" who has gone beyond the limits ofthe Kurdish issue to present a democratic project that guaranties the rights of all peoples, emphasizing that the democratic nation philosophy formulated by the leader Abdullah Ocalan represents an alternative to the nation-state, and opens the way to building a participatory society based on equality and women's freedom.

Nabil al-Mulhem's message

As for the Syrian writer Nabil al-Mulhem, he affirmed that the leader Abdullah Ocalan managed to transform the prison from a constraint into an intellectual space, pointing out that just as NelsonMandela and Mahatma Gandhi did. The leader Abdullah Ocalan has provided a new model of leadership based on thought and reflection, rather than on weapons. From his cell in Imrali, he reframed a global political discourse inspired by the civilizations of the Middle East to build the democratic nation project.

Al-Mulhem concluded, "I wish to meet Abdullah Ocalan.With the slogan launched by the campaign, I join the campaign in order to reach the call's success and achieve the international thinker and philosopher's appeal "Democratic Peace and Society."

J.J

ANHA