Kurdish politician Kenan Ayaz sent a message to the Cypriot people expressing his thanks for their support and solidarity.
According to a statement from the Cyprus-Kurdish Solidarity Association, Kenan Ayaz expressed his respect “to the honourable Cypriot people, friends, political parties, non-governmental organisations, MPs, youth organisations who sent messages of solidarity and support, as well as to the group of fans who gave a message of solidarity with the banner they hung at the football match”.
He said that on 15 March he was taken into custody after being arrested at Larnaca airport at the request of the German state when he was on his way to visit his family in Sweden.
Recalling his life, from his capture by the Turkish state at a young age, torture and imprisonment, he says that in 2010 he came to Cyprus and applied for political and state asylum. His stay was accepted and since the date of his application he has been living officially in Cyprus.
What is on trial here, he says, is the struggle of an oppressed and occupied people and the struggle of peoples to live freely together.
“The struggle for a just cause cannot be described as ‘terrorism’ or an ‘act of terrorism’. The people of Cyprus know best that this is not so. Because the people of Cyprus know all too well the authoritarian and slaughtering approaches of the fascist Turkish state.”
He expresses the hope that the Cypriot justice system will make a decision “taking into account all these realities” because, he says, his extradition to Germany would in fact mean “surrendering to the fascist Turkish state”, and expresses confidence that the people of Cyprus will support the struggle for freedom.