Thirty Years of Loyalty

It is a perfect model of revolutionary will, taken up by the journey of Kurdish activist Sadiq Badian from Aliyan, influenced by the thought and philosophy of leader Abdullah Ocalan, along with that of his comrades who had opened the road to resistance in the prisons of the Turkish state with the events of the hunger strike on July 14.

He chose the path of Kurdish freedom from the very beginning.

Sadiq Muhammad Tayyib Hassan Barjas was born in 1970 in the village of Badian in the countryside of Jal Agha within the Aliyan region of al-Jazira Canton. His patriotic family made great sacrifices in the Kurdish freedom movement and the Rojava Revolution. He studied at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Damascus University. He was the fourth of six siblings.

Between 1980 and 1985, Sadiq got to know the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, whose members at the time were called "students" and who crossed the border into the Aliyan region on their way toward the mountains of Kurdistan.

At first, Sadiq saw the movement as no more than a Kurdish nationalist struggle to build a free and democratic Kurdistan. But this perception drastically changed with time. He was struck by the lifestyle of the members of the movement and their intellectual and comradely debates, which were distinct from those in other Kurdish movements. With their frequent visits to their family home, especially Comrade Akid, accompanied by Comrade Muhammad Qarsangul and others, Sadiq and his family began actively participating in the movement's activities, thus embarking on their long journey of struggle and resistance in defense of the cause of freedom and dignity. From University Halls to Mountains of Kurdistan

During his studies at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Damascus University, Sadiq Muhammad Tayeb Hassan's connection to the Kurdish freedom movement deepened. There, he began to get acquainted with party groups active among students, working to organize them politically within the university.

In 1986, he took an active part in the party's organizational work, dedicating almost two and a half years to students and politics until, in 1990, he made a historic decision to join the ranks of the armed struggle to build a free and democratic Kurdistan.

His family opposed the decision first, as his parents wanted him to continue university studies. However, his insistence made his family support him. His father gave him a weapon and sent him away with great confidence in him and the path he had chosen. On March 19, 1990, Sadiq officially joined the ranks of the armed struggle of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement and entered southern Kurdistan. He began his resistance in the Haftanin region after military and political training. Then he joined one of the groups preparing for entry into northern Kurdistan, specifically the Dersim area, between 1990-1991. During that period, there was a significant influx of the residents of Rojava into the armed struggle.

When he reached Amed, the Turkish army besieged his group after heavy clashes resulted in the martyrdom of four comrades. This forced them to stay in Amed, after which he initiated three years of incessant struggle within the ranks of Amed guerrillas between the years of 1991 and 1994, dedicating his life to the mountains and rough terrain in an unyielding resistance. When, in 1994, he needed to undergo a back surgery at a hospital in Diyarbakır and was then transferred to Çukurca in Adana for physical therapy, he was tasked with continuing his organizational duties in Adana and reiterated his pledge of allegiance as follows to ANHA agency: "A true cadre fights in any arena the movement assigns him, without objection." Sadik continued his struggle in Adana for a whole year, doing clandestine organizational work among the people, until he was later arrested by the Turkish authorities.

Three Decades of Resilience

On January 19, 1995, while in Adana, Turkish authorities arrested Sadiq Hassan (Sadiq Badian) after someone informed on him to the security services. Since his arrest, a new chapter of struggle began inside the prisons with steadfastness and resilience against torture and oppression.

Since the initial days of his detention, Sadiq has been subjected to ruthless interrogations and extreme pressure in an attempt to force him to divulge information on comrades of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement. Nevertheless, he refrained from confessing and bravely resisted physical and psychological torture. After an extensive investigation, a Turkish court imposed a 30-year prison sentence on charges of joining the armed struggle of the PKK.

He spent the first eight years of his long imprisonment in Konya Prison, after which he was transferred to Sincan Prison in Ankara, where he again stayed for eight years, then to Karaklı Prison for seven years, and finally to Edirne Prison on the Bulgarian border to serve the last seven years of his sentence.

Sadiq was imprisoned for nine months past his sentence because he refused to sign the "repentance" paper that Turkish authorities make all political prisoners sign. He said he did not, and would never, regret the struggle that he waged inside the movement.

He was released on October 9, 2025, after serving 30 years and nine months in prison. Days later, on October 22, Sadiq Badian returned to his hometown in Aliyan region of the province of Cizre. Thousands of people from the town, his former comrades, as well as activists from local community organizations, were waiting for him. In an exclusive interview with ANHA agency, Sadiq summarized: "For 30 years, I didn't tell anything about my comrades or the movement. I considered my arrest a mistake I had made against the movement and my people, because a true fighter isn't easily captured. Nevertheless, I transformed the prison into a field of resistance."

He added, "The prison conditions were very tough. When we entered, we knew nothing about the life inside the prison, but we learned from our comrades who were arrested in the 1980s. We organized our lives with what we learned from the party's ideology and the lifestyle of the guerrilla. Even though we couldn't wage the resistance like the martyrs of July 14th, we continued the struggle within the cells with their spirit of resistance and refusal of submission and surrender in order to return one day to the fields of resistance."

Thus, Sadiq Badian concluded his three-decade journey of imprisonment and resistance within Turkish prisons, carrying with him a memory of determination and perseverance and a promise to continue the struggle for the freedom of Leader Abdullah Ocalan and the dignity of the Kurdish people. "The Rojava Revolution has proved the correctness of Leader Ocalan's ideology, and the spirit of the July 14th resistance is still alive in the prisons," said Sadiq Badian. He continued, "Thanks to the July 14th fighters who planted the seeds of this struggle inside the prisons, we guarded the organizational line they drew-a line refusing surrender and upholding the philosophy of Leader Abdullah Ocalan, while the guerrilla resistance raised our spirits with every heroic operation the movement undertook."

He continued, “The most important thing for us in prison was not to lose hope of being released and returning into the ranks of the struggle. We lived on the dream of returning and resuming the journey from where we left off.” Badian spoke about the July 19th Revolution in Rojava: "When I saw the gains achieved, I realized that this had been in Leader Abdullah Ocalan's imagination for decades. He prepared the people for this day twenty years ago." Badian pointed out that the struggle of the Rojava communities in the July 19th Revolution, especially the pioneering role of women, boosted the morale of the fighters in Turkish prisons. He said, "What women have achieved in Rojava, thanks to the Leader's thought and guidance, has changed our perspectives. Today, I see before me a true democratic revolution and unity among the communities under the umbrella of the Democratic Nation project presented by the Leader."

In conclusion, Kurdish fighter Sadiq Badian promised the continuation of the struggle along the path of Leader Ocalan: "What I have seen in Rojava has strengthened my connection to the Leader and his philosophy. This is an opportunity to correct our mistakes and intensify our struggle with a stronger spirit of camaraderie with the Leader. We will continue until his physical freedom is achieved and a democratic society is built, because our freedom will not be complete without his freedom."

ANHA