Sarah Glynn reports from Strasbourg, where she spent time with the Kurdish hunger strikers on strike to demand an end to the Turkish regime’s isolation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan

WRITING on my way back from a return visit to the Kurdish hunger strikers in Strasbourg, I can report that their morale and commitment has only strengthened - if that is possible - as their bodies have weakened. 

On the 20^th anniversary to the day since Kurdish liberation leader Abdullah Öcalan was abducted and imprisoned in Turkey, Sarah Glynn of Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan explains why the protest movement internationally to end Öcalan’s isolation is rising, including demonstrations in Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow this week

Activists on hunger strike in France and in Turkish prisons demand an end to the isolation of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan

-          Scottish activists Sarah Glynn and Fiona Napier will travel to Strasbourg this week to offer solidarity to 15 members of the Freedom for Öcalan Initiative on hunger strike

-          The strike hopes to “end the ongoing, inhumane isolation the Turkish state has imposed on the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan”

The new head of Interpol, the international policing liaison agency, has been elected amid a furious controversy.

CommonSpace journalist David Jamieson asks: In a world where repression is increasingly commonplace, is Interpol – swamped in corporate money and with little oversight – really combating global crime?

As an Aberdeen academic arrested by Turkish authorities is finally freed, Rhiannon Davies details the escalation of Turkey’s brutal authoritarianism

“DEAREST friends and colleagues, I’m finally out and free (hopefully)... I hope you won’t be facing such troubles or such violations of human rights in Turkey. That’s our hope, but we all know it will take some time to realise this hope.”

CommonSpace reports from the protest against the controversial Undersea Defence Technology conference

OUTSIDE THE Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in Glasgow today (26 June), demonstrators gathered to protest the first day of the Undersea Defence Technology conference, labelled an arms fair by outraged campaigners.

Pride organisers call out lack of local benefit and unethical production concerns in LGBT charity’s Primark partnership

RETAIL GIANT Primark’s Pride range, which will donate 20 per cent of profits to LGBT charity Stonewall UK, has come under fire after it emerged that the products will be manufactured in Turkey, China and Myanmar – all of which have poor LGBT rights records.

Solidarity activist Sarah Glynn visited Kurdish women in Rojava where she was inspired by their commitment in the face of multiple threats

SARAH GLYNN of Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan was part of a women’s delegation to Northern Syria earlier this month, where she witnessed firsthand the Kurdish women’s commitment to rebuilding the war-torn region, even as threats and instability continue on all sides.

GMB and Unite campaign to free Kurdish leader imprisoned in Turkey sends ‘birthday greeting’ via British ambassador

MARKING THE 69th birthday of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, a UK trade union campaign calling for his freedom has sent a birthday card and pointed letter to British Ambassador to Turkey, Sir Dominick Chilcott.