Chair of Westminster Justice & Peace Commission, Fr Joe Ryan, this week is attending a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, which launches the international campaign 'Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan.'

Ocalan is a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers' party, which has been insisting for an independent Kurdish state since the 1980s. He has been imprisoned since 1999. Despite a 2005 European Court of Human Rights ruling that Turkey had violated the European Convention of Human Rights by its treatment of Ocalan, the website freedom-for-ocalan.com reports that Ocalan has been denied visitors (including lawyers) for at least the past year.

At the press conference, taking place today (Thursday), signatories will speak about the campaign, as well as the bigger picture of securing lasting peace for the Kurdish people.  High-profile signatories of the international petition demanding freedom for Ocalan and other political prisoners in Turkey include linguist Noam Chomsky, MP Tony Benn and writer Alice Walker.