HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK)

The Kurdistan Workers Party are a group of armed guerrilla fighters who historically aimed to create an autonomous Kurdistan region in part of Turkey.

Founded in 1978, the group have fought a bloody war with the Turkish state which has cost over 40,000 lives and are classified as a terrorist organisation by the US, EU and NATO.

Led by Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in prison since 1999 after being captured by the CIA, the party has in recent years moved away from Marxist-Leninism and the goal of an independent state and has moved towards what Ocalan has termed ‘Democratic Confederalism’ inspired by the writings of American anarchist theorist Murray Bookchin (whom Ocalan read avidly while in prison in Turkey).