Thousands of Kurds on Saturday demonstrated in Strasbourg against the imprisonment of banned Kurdistan Worker's Party leader Abdullah Ocalan. Police estimated that around 15,000 Kurds participated in the demonstration.
More than 40,000 Kurds from several European countries have called for a medical examination of the former PKK party leader, serving a life sentence on Imrali, in the Marara Sea off Istanbul.
Demonstrators from Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria expressed their solidarity with 18 Kurds who have been on a hunger strike in Strasbourg for 32 days.
They want an enquiry by the anti-torture committee of the Council of Europe and in independent medical investigation of Ocalan, who was arrested in 1999. The Kurds fear their former leader has been poisoned, which Turkish authorities deny.