NEWS CENTER – Asrın Law Office issued a written statement against the isolation against Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan. The statement said, “We have heard that Mr. Öcalan did not attend the meeting during the CPT’s visit to İmralı Island in September 2022. Unfortunately, we could not confirm the opposite of this statement during our meeting with the CPT.”
The statement of Asrın Law Office is as follows:
“Our client, Mr. Abdullah Öcalan, has been held in Imrali High Security Prison, which has been an island prison since February 1999, and our other clients, Mr. Hamili Yıldırım, Mr. Ömer Hayri Konar and Mr. Veysi Aktaş, since March 2015. The conditions of detention they are exposed to are contrary to the national legislation and do not deprive them of any of their fundamental rights. they cannot benefit.
Although many applications and complaints have been made by us regarding this issue, legal rights have not been established. The last physical contact with them was the family visit on March 3, 2020. After this date, physical contact is not allowed. Only one year after this visit, with the imposition of extraordinary conditions, an exceptional telephone conversation was allowed on 25 March 2021. Our clients, Mr. Ömer Hayri Konar and Mr. Veysi Aktaş, protested the isolation they were subjected to and boycotted the phone call and did not attend the meeting. Mr. Öcalan’s phone call with his brother was interrupted and ended. After this problematic relationship, it was not possible to access any confirmed information about them.
During the 20-month period after the meeting in question, our clients are kept in absolute isolation from the outside world and kept in conditions of absolute lack of communication. This situation means torture and ill-treatment, as well as contrary to universal legal values and national legislation. Although we have made many attempts during this time to draw attention to the possible or possible consequences of this treatment and to make up for it, unfortunately, it was not possible to get any results.
AUDIT MECHANISMS ARE INSUFFICIENT
We have made applications to many non-governmental organizations as well as the Ombudsman Institution, which are the legal audit and review mechanisms, the Parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission, the Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey, the Ministry of Justice and related departments.
In addition, we have made applications to the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Committee and its sub-units formed against torture. Our applications were left unanswered to a large extent, and no result has emerged that has changed the isolation practices.
In this respect, we remind you that the Minister of Justice of the time made a statement that there was no obstacle to the realization of the negotiations after the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) members accepted in 2019. At that time, the justification of the struggle against isolation in the style of hunger strikes was accepted by the democratic public opinion. However, we would like to emphasize our expectation that the relevant parties, who promised that they will take over the struggle themselves, will do what they have to say, as this is a question of law and democracy.
REPORTS MUST BE DISCLOSED TO THE PUBLIC
It is not possible for a prison to be completely closed to the outside world, both in national legislation and in international law. There cannot be a penitentiary and execution institution that is closed to lawyers and family visits and where the right of correspondence and telephone is not recognized. A prisoner’s contact with a lawyer cannot be completely prevented, and it is a legal obligation to allow at least one communication channel under all circumstances.
However, despite this, we have been prevented from contacting our clients for 20 months, even getting news from our clients. The reports of the Provincial Prison Monitoring Boards on Imrali, which are required to make a prison visit every 2 months and report on-site observations and determinations as required by law, are not shared with the public.
WE ARE NOT AWARE OF ANY DEVELOPMENTS ABOUT OUR CLIENT’S TERMS
We do not have information about our clients’ access to information, whether the books supplied to them are subject to censorship and restrictions, the delivery time of daily newspapers and magazines, their access to television and radio. In addition, we are aware that our clients’ joint activity rights are also being interfered with due to disciplinary penalties based on visit bans. The “deceptive” and inadmissibility of the disciplinary sanctions imposed were also emphasized in the CPT reports. In short, we have no information about the unlawful orientation and political decisions, as well as the treatment and material conditions that Mr. Abdullah Öcalan and our clients have been subjected to for 20 months.
‘WE HAVE THE SENSE OF ABDULLAH ÖCALAN NOT GOING TO MEET WITH CPT’
In this process, the only meaningful contact to address our concerns caused by the absolute isolation is the CPT’s visit to Turkey on 20-29 September 2022. The CPT included İmralı in its visit to removal centres, although it was not in its routine calendar.
Although it was the center of our demands regarding the CPT, the actual development of this visit before and after this increased our concerns. For this reason, we had a face-to-face meeting with the CPT, who responded positively to our appointment request, on 13 October 2022. In this meeting, CPT officials did not give the slightest information about the conditions of our clients, nor did they answer any of our questions. During the meeting, which lasted approximately 45 minutes, the authorities reminded each of our questions about the procedures to which the CPT is bound; They confined themselves to saying that they would prepare a report on their visit and submit it to Turkey, and that they could only share this report with the public with Turkey’s approval. We know from our past experience that this procedure takes one to one and a half years to complete. However, such a period of time will cause irreparable damages when there is no news available. We are of course aware of the conventions and procedures to which the CPT is subject. However, we also know that this issue does not prevent our clients, whom we have not heard from for 20 months, from informing them about the conditions of detention.
In addition, we have heard that Mr. Öcalan did not attend the meeting during the CPT’s visit to İmralı Island in September 2022. Unfortunately, in our meeting with the CPT, we could not confirm the opposite of this feeling. While the distinctive feature of CPT visits is private meetings with prisoners, the accuracy of such a statement would make the CPT’s visit more controversial. For these aforementioned reasons, both the last actual visit of the CPT and our last meeting with the CPT increased rather than reduced our concerns. It is a requirement of the values of the establishment and the international law to which the CPT is bound to inform about the visit it has made to the Imrali Island, which is in its jurisdiction.
IT IS MANDATORY TO ENSURE REGULAR VISITS BY ENDING THE ISOLATION
Our periodic briefings and requests to the CPT continue. Likewise, we have applications to the Ministry of Justice to meet with the minister in order to convey the seriousness of the situation and share the available data. Our regular applications to the Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Execution Judge and the prison administration continue uninterruptedly for lawyer visits to take place.
In this context, our demand and insistence on the establishment of constitutional rights and the necessity of universal law for our clients to immediately meet with their lawyers, the relevant institutions to respond positively to our demands and to provide the necessary information as required by their duties continues uninterruptedly. We present it to the public with our belief that everyone who is in favor of fundamental rights and freedoms will follow the process by showing the necessary sensitivity to overcome this inhumane situation.”
