Noam Chomsky sends Newroz message to Van

U.S. linguist Noam Chomsky has sent a greeting to participants in the Newroz celebration in the northern Kurdish province of Van, where tens of thousands of people gathered on Sunday amid snowfall to welcome spring. Chomsky, in his message broadcast over a large screen, emphasized that the Kurdish people were fighting “heroically” for freedom and justice and that their resistance had always been “inspiring” to him.

Chomsky also strongly protested the incommunicado detention of Abdullah Öcalan, the mastermind of the Kurdish liberation movement, who has been held as a political hostage in the Imrali island prison since 1999. “Mr. Öcalan has been subjected to appalling isolation. This isolation also affects the Kurdish people. It must be broken,” Chomsky said. The message was met with celebratory cheers from the celebrating crowd in Van.