İSTANBUL - TİHV Chairperson Metin Bakkalcı stated that the CPT has the initiative to explain the situation in Imrali and called for an "open stance".

 

PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan is being held under severe isolation conditions in the High Security Prison on Imrali Island, where he was brought on February 15, 1999, following the conspiracy launched by international forces on October 9, 1998. Concerns about the situation of Abdullah Öcalan, who has not been heard from since the intermittent phone call he made with his brother on March 25, 2021, and other prisoners Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım and Veysi Aktaş, who have been in prison the same month, are growing day by day. Asrın Law Office's lawyers and Öcalan and other prisoners' families are blocked on the grounds of "disciplinary" penalties.

 

While many politicians and intellectuals, as well as legal organisations in the Middle East and Europe, especially in Turkey, called for an end to the aggravated isolation on Abdullah Öcalan, the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) made a statement on October 3. It stated that it visited Turkey and also went to İmralı.

 

CPT AT IMRALI

 

The CPT, an international institution, said in its statement regarding Imrali, "The social activities offered to the prisoners and their relations with the outside world were specifically examined." The CPT did not share information about whether it had a meeting with Abdullah Öcalan as well as other names. Abdullah Öcalan's lawyers, who informed the public about the visit of the CPT, which refused to share information despite insistent demands, on November 29, stated that they had heard that their client did not meet with the CPT and called for sensitivity; however, the CPT did not share any information.

 

'OPEN STANCE SHOULD BE EXHIBITED'

 

Bakkalcı stated that the CPT did not know what kind of meetings they held behind closed doors and that these meetings were confidential. Bakkalcı emphasized that this situation, which he described as "isolation", has been going on for years and therefore it should display a more open stance.

 

MA / Mehmet Aslan