Dozens of Kurds and Cypriots gathered outside the Nicosia Central Prison on Wednesday afternoon, demanding the immediate release of Kurdish activist Kenan Ayaz, who returned to the island on Monday to serve the remainder of his sentence, after his extradition to Germany.
Ayaz, 50, was sentenced by a German court in September 2024 to four years and three months in prison for alleged membership of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), and has been detained in Germany for over two years.
Ayaz returned to Cyprus after serving two years in German prison
The Kurdish activist was originally arrested at Larnaca airport in March 2023 on accusations of international terrorism and extradited to Germany after Larnaca district court approved the request. Ayaz had been granted refugee status in Cyprus in 2010 after fleeing Turkey, where he was initially jailed in 1993 before being acquitted and later re-indicted in 2010.
The Observatory for the Trial of Kenan Ayaz advocacy group called his return “a great day” for the Kurdish community in Cyprus, stating he had “returned today to continue his struggle with all of us, for a world without oppression, occupation and genocide”.
Representatives from multiple organisations addressed the demonstration, including the Association of Democratic Lawyers of Cyprus, Ayaz’s lawyer Efstathios Efstathiou, and politicians from AKEL party and the Movement of Ecologists-Citizens’ Cooperation.
Ayaz convicted for PKK membership amid group’s dissolution
Ayaz was accused of acting as a “regional leader” in the PKK and being involved in organising events and gatherings for propaganda dissemination. The PKK is a proscribed terrorist organisation in Turkey, the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom.
The case occurs amid dramatic changes in the Kurdish political landscape. In May 2025, the PKK announced its dissolution and the end of its 40-year armed struggle against Turkey, following a call by imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to lay down arms. The group began symbolic disarmament ceremonies in July 2025 in northern Iraq.
Supporter calls for Cyprus to defend its own laws and values
The demonstration concluded with the reading of a message from Ayaz by one of his defence lawyers, in which he criticised both the German trial and his extradition from Cyprus.
“Germany conducted this trial to please Erdogan,” Ayaz wrote from Cyprus’s Central Prison. “Despite the fact that there were no criminal charges, they overturned the facts and imposed a heavy sentence on me.”
Ayaz accused the Cypriot government of extraditing him “without requesting evidence, basing its decision solely on German accusations” and violating “its own laws, the European Convention on Human Rights and Greek values.”
The activist called on Cyprus not to be used as a tool for Germany’s case and urged the country to defend “its own laws, values and historical heritage.”
During his two years in German prison, the Kurdish politician faced “harsh conditions,” according to his advocacy group, which described his prosecution as “a blow to human rights” demonstrating the political targeting of the Kurdish movement in Europe
