JINHA

NEWS CENTER –Newroz festivities kicked off in towns and cities across Kurdistan yesterday, with citizens taking to the streets in traditional Kurdish clothes, dancing traditional dances and carrying posters of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. The flags of the YPG/YPJ, PKK, and other Kurdish organizations waved above the festivities in dozens of towns.

This year at the Kurdish New Year celebrations, the common slogan in the Newroz festivities has been "enough is enough, freedom for Leader Apo"—referring to the jailed PKK leader who the Turkish state has held imprisoned for the last 16 years.

With recent developments like a signature campaign gathered millions for Öcalan's freedom and citizens launching a series of long multi-city "freedom for Öcalan" marches—earlier this year in Europe, now one across Northern Kurdistan—the demand was a common one in the Newroz celebration.

"We don't want letters and videos, we want the leader himself to be here" read one sign in the town of Birecik, in Urfa province. In Halfeti, a town in the same province where Öcalan was born, thousands were out in the celebration, with a range of politicians attending.The province of Urfa saw many towns getting up at first light to start the celebrations and light the Newroz fire, in spite of police blockades around the Newroz squares in some towns, including Viranşehir.

In Kızıltepe, in Mardin province, where the co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) delivered a major speech, citizens covered their faces with the puşi scarf to protest the recent Internal Security Law passed in the Turkish Parliament, which forbids covering the face. Citizens later marched through the streets.

Two European delegations, one of the Danish Greens and one of visitors from Italy, have arrived in Diyarbakır for Newroz. They met with the Congress of Free Women (KJA) and Democratic Society Congress (DTK) to meet one another. With citywide Newroz festivities culminating on the 21^st. Last night, the Diyarbakır neighborhood of Bağlar saw a joyous lighting of a Newroz fire in the streets.

The city of Cizrein Şırnak province, the point of origin of the current march of thousands heading for Diyarbakır with the demand of "freedom for Öcalan," was full of revelers with the rebellious spirit of the 1992 Newroz.

In the city ofHakkari, revelers flooded the streets in a march to the Newroz arena. Convoys of cars carried thousands more to the city center from the surrounding villages.In Van province, celebrations in the town of Erciş took place under the slogan "this year, the Newroz fire must burn for the leader."

Dozens of towns in the provinces of Şırnak,Mardin, Diyarbakır and Adıyaman also kicked off their celebrations yesterday.

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