Zehra Kurtay is a revolutionary who spent many years imprisoned in Turkey and was subjected to torture and other cruel and inhuman practices. In 2000, she took part in the death fast protest against the opening of F-Type prisons based on isolation. On the 186th day of this action, she was subjected to “force-feeding” in a medically dangerous and unlawful manner. As a result, she suffered permanent neurological damage to her brain and was diagnosed with Wernicke–Korsakoff Syndrome, for which there is no cure. Due to this illness, she experiences severe memory and balance problems. Consequently, she is a person who can live only with special care and support for the rest of her life, with limited independent mobility.
Because of the political repression she experienced in Turkey, the torture and other cruel practices she was subjected to, and for treatment purposes, Zehra Kurtay came to France by exercising her right to political asylum. After living in France for many years with refugee status, she has for some time now been facing serious violations of her right to political asylum due to arbitrary and unlawful practices by the French state.
These arbitrary and unlawful practices inflicted on Zehra Kurtay in France appear as part of the French state’s policy—also applicable to other imperialist states in Europe and around the world—of criminalizing revolutionaries in order to exert pressure over peoples and, within this framework, increasing pressure on political refugees. In this period, in which the law is increasingly instrumentalized and a systematic mechanism of repression against revolutionaries is being established, the legitimacy of Zehra Kurtay’s just resistance is once again clearly demonstrated.
As a result of these practices, Zehra Kurtay has been dragged into a process full of illegality. First, her residence status was revoked through various maneuvers; then she was placed in an administrative detention center and an attempt was made to deport her to Turkey. As a result of an intense legal and political struggle, the court annulled the decision regarding her deportation to Turkey. Although this significant achievement has, for the time being, eliminated the risk of her deportation to Turkey, the arbitrary and unlawful practices of the French state against Zehra Kurtay continue.
Indeed, immediately after this decision, the Prefecture of Créteil, where Zehra Kurtay resides, ruled that Zehra must “leave France in order to go to a third country.” This decision was also annulled as a result of legal struggle. The Prefecture objected to the court’s ruling, and this objection was rejected by the higher court. However, the Prefecture has appealed this decision. During this process, due to the unlawful practices she has been subjected to and the failure to return her residence permit document, Zehra Kurtay began an indefinite hunger strike on 3 July 2025, demanding the restoration of her usurped right of residence. The main argument of the Prefecture’s latest appeal is that “democracy now exists in Turkey, that the PKK’s decision to disarm is proof of this, that there is no longer any obstacle to her return to the country, and that there is no torture in prisons.” The hearing regarding this appeal was supposed to take place in Paris on 15 December 2025, where both the deportation process to Turkey and the issue of returning her confiscated residence permit document would be decided. However, on Friday, 12 December 2025—without any reason being given—the hearing was postponed to 12 January 2026. This is a deliberate and political decision. This decision means endangering the health and life of Zehra Kurtay, who has been on an indefinite hunger strike since 3 July 2025 for the restoration of her political asylum rights and her confiscated right of residence.
In parallel, Zehra Kurtay, who submitted a new application for political asylum, was informed that her file had been closed by OFPRA (the asylum authority) on the grounds that “the letter allegedly sent to her was not received.” However, after the application was submitted, no document, request, warning, or summons was communicated to her through the electronic account through which all correspondence was supposed to be carried out. The closure of the file just a few days before the hearing is not a normal bureaucratic process but a deliberate political maneuver aimed at breaking the resistance of a political refugee who has been on a hunger strike for months and whose life is at risk.
Serious efforts were made to have this file reopened, and as a result of pressure, the file was reopened and her new application will continue through this file.
Zehra Kurtay has been continuing her hunger strike since 3 July 2025, and her health is rapidly deteriorating. Now in the 180s days of the hunger strike, her health condition has reached a critical level. Muscle loss has accelerated, and her weight has dropped to 36 kilograms. Medical evaluations show a severe decrease in muscle reflexes, advanced loss of strength, and a dangerously depleted level of the body’s vital reserves. Due to chronic insomnia, constant fatigue, and fluid accumulation in her legs, her mobility is severely restricted. Advanced loss of sensation and numbness have begun in her fingers and toes. She has started to experience problems such as loss of balance, memory lapses, decreased vision, and sensitivity to sound and light, and these symptoms are increasing day by day.
This picture reveals the magnitude of the risk caused by the French state’s arbitrary and unlawful attack on the right to asylum of a political refugee from Turkey. The French state must immediately abandon this stance and put an end without delay to its violations, which have now reached a level that poses a risk to Zehra Kurtay’s right to life.