On the 24th anniversary of the international conspiracy; The immoral and illegal practices against the leader Abdullah Ocalan continue. During 678 days; 244 requests submitted by lawyers and 83 requests submitted by the family of the leader remained unanswered. While 4 “disciplinary penalties” were taken against him, each of which lasted for 3 months, and in the face of all this; The silence of international organizations such as the European Committee against Torture and the European Court of Human Rights indicates that the responsibility of the Imrali regime is not limited to the Turkish state alone.
The international conspiracy against the leader Abdullah Ocalan entered its 25th year, and whenever it failed through resistance and struggle, the Turkish state sought to continue it in new ways and methods.
With the penetration of Turkish intelligence “MIT” into the Syrian borders on May 6th, 1996 and its attempt to assassinate the leader Abdullah Ocalan with a failed car bomb attack in Damascus, a multilateral scheme began between the international powers.
At that time, the Turkish state deployed its forces on the Syrian borders and threatened to invade Syria, which prompted the leader Abdullah Ocalan to say: "I do not wish to put Syria in trouble, which has been hosting me for 19 years. This would be a shame." Then he left Syria on the 9th of October. The first in 1998.
In the context of searching for a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue, all doors were closed in the face of leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was in Europe.
Leader Ocalan was kidnapped from Kenya and transferred to the Greek embassy and handed over to Turkey on the 129th day of the international conspiracy, despite his application for asylum in Greece. The day they chose to hand him over (February 15) revealed the goals of the conspiracy and the conspiring parties. On February 15, 1925, the international forces launched a plot against Sheikh Saeed, and they wanted to choose the same day; Sending a message to the Kurdish people that "history repeats itself."
Imrali torture system
Leader Abdullah Ocalan described Imrali Island as a "coffin" because it is unfit for life and prevents him from communicating with anyone, but with his steadfastness and resistance, he defeated the plots of the conspirators, which prompted them to establish a torture regime there.
"Just as Zeus, Athena, Hades and Ares cooperated to bind Prometheus and chained him to the rocks of the Caucasus, their human descendants imprisoned me and chained me to the rocks of Imrali Island," with these words described the leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is being detained under strict conditions of isolation in the maximum security Imrali prison, and his place there. No information has been received about leader Ocalan for more than 23 months, while violations of rights and crimes have not stopped in Imrali for 24 years.
A system targets health
Leader Abdullah Ocalan was suffering before his arrest only from sinusitis, but the poor conditions in prison made him suffer from many health problems caused by weather conditions, isolation, and torture. The leader Abdullah Ocalan revealed in the few meetings that rarely occurred due to the Turkish state obstructing them; He suffers from many diseases such as angina pectoris (an infectious disease caused by bacteria and viruses from the environment), pharyngitis, allergic rhinitis, asthma, itching, shortness of breath, severe headache and many other diseases. Despite suffering from all these diseases, the leader Ocalan cannot benefit from his health rights. It turned out that in 2010, the daily medical examinations were stopped.
Physical attacks
In addition to practices targeting the health of leader Ocalan, they are also attacking him physically. It was revealed that he was subjected to a poisoning process in 2007, and it was indicated that the cell in which he was being held was painted a year before this incident, and the poisoning may have been caused by the paint on the walls.
In March 2007, the leader's lawyers analyzed a sample of their client's hair and revealed that he had been poisoned. In July 2008, the leader’s hair was forcibly shaved off and he was physically assaulted, after that, by imposing isolation within isolation; The leader was transferred to a smaller cell, that is, they tightened the torture regime, which the leader described as "the coffin" and "slow death."
complete isolation
Leader Ocalan, who is being held in solitary confinement as part of the torture regime in Imrali, was prevented from meeting with his lawyer, family, and agent. He has not been able to meet his lawyer since March 3, 2014; only five times during the months of May and August 2019, while he was not allowed to benefit from his right to make phone calls since his arrest in 1999 until now; except twice, one on the 27th of April 2020 and the other on the 25th of March 2021; As it was the second time; When he was allowed to make a phone call to his brother, Muhammad Ocalan, after rumors about his health were spread on the media, and the call lasted only 3-4 minutes, then it was cut off, and no information has been received from him since then.
327 requests to meet with the leader were rejected without reasonDuring the 24 years starting with his arrest in 1999; Leader Abdullah Ocalan was only able to meet his lawyer 442 times, and his family only 5 times. According to the information we received from Al-Asr Human Rights Office; The lawyers submitted 238 requests, and the family 79 requests, since the last contact with the leader, which was by phone on the 25th of March 2021, until the end of the past year 2022. While the lawyers submitted 6 requests and the family 4 requests during the month of January with the aim of meeting the leader, while his representative submitted with weekly requests, all of these requests were rejected under the pretext of “disciplinary penalties.”
Imrali witnessed the imposition of unprecedented "disciplinary penalties"; As the “quarantine penalties and disciplinary investigations” entered into force with the first meeting with lawyers on the 25th of February 1999. During the past year, 3 bans were taken against the leader (each of which prohibited meeting with the family for three months, on the 3rd of February, the 31st of September). May and September 9, in addition to issuing another ban banning him from meeting with his lawyer for six months on April 13. This responds to objection requests submitted by lawyers to “disciplinary penalties” whose reasons are not disclosed to lawyers until after the expiration of this period. State courts quickly reject appeals submitted by lawyers and remove the case from the stages of investigation, trial and decision-making, in violation of Article 59 of the European Prisons Law (the accused has the right to defend himself through a legal assistant if the interest of justice so requires).
The European Committee against Torture is silent
Even the international organizations responsible for preventing torture and monitoring prisons ignore the violations in Imrali. The European Committee against Torture, which was established in 1989 to combat torture, inhumane practices, humiliation and ill-treatment, is also silent about these practices. According to the committee's reports and warnings, member states must change the status of prisons and conditions of detention. According to the Convention against Torture Committee, it must visit Imrali Island regularly, and it made its first visit two weeks after the arrest of the leader (March 2, 1999). It was stated in the report that was published about the visit on May 5, 1999 that the leader Ocalan would not be arrested in prison alone.
The number of investigations conducted by the European Committee against Torture in Imrali since 1999 has reached eight (27 February and 3 March 1999, 2 September 2001, 16-17 February 2003, 19-22 May 2007, 6-7 May 2019). A number of them are due to anxiety and concerns about the health and life of leader Abdullah Ocalan. However, it did not prevent strict isolation and complete isolation, and it prepared a number of reports on rights violations and crimes, but this did not make a difference and no sanctions were imposed on the Turkish state.
The European Committee against Torture visited Turkey between the eleventh and the twenty-fifth of January 2021, but it did not visit Imrali despite its visit to many prisons, as the committee recently conducted, specifically between the twentieth and the twenty-ninth of last September; Another visit to Turkey and it officially announced its visit to Imrali prison, but it did not provide any information about whether its delegation had met the leader or not. Meanwhile, the leader's lawyers revealed that the committee did not meet their client during its visit. The Human Rights Office submitted a request to the European Committee against Torture, asking it to work to prevent all forms of torture and bad and immoral practices, to obtain information and to implement the specific procedures in accordance with Article 10/2 of the Committee Convention, but they did not achieve any results.
Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights
The decisions of the European Court of Human Rights that enable individuals and societies to object to violations of their fundamental rights have remained mere ink on paper
On the eighteenth of March 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the case filed by the lawyers of the leader Ocalan and indicated that the sentence of hardened life imprisonment without the right to release the leader Ocalan violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (no one may be subjected to torture, inhumane treatment or humiliation) and decided that Turkey should make legal amendments.
Turkey did not take any step despite the decision known as "Ocalan 2", but the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe gave Turkey until last September to define a "road map" in line with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights and to resolve the issue of the "right to hope" (a person cannot remain in prison). until the end of his life, whatever happens), but Turkey, which is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, ignores this decision by not changing its laws and practices.
Despite this, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which met in Strasbourg on the 22nd and 23rd of September, did not put this issue on its agenda.
Not responding to hundreds of requests
The requests made by hundreds of jurists, politicians, legal organizations and intellectuals from Kurdistan, Turkey, the Middle East and Europe with the aim of lifting the isolation of leader Ocalan and allowing him to meet with him, did not achieve any results.
350 lawyers from 22 different countries, 775 lawyers from members of the Jurists for Freedom Association, a number of lawyers from 29 law firms in Turkey and Bakur Kurdistan, the co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party and the Democratic Regions Party, as well as parliamentarians, submitted a request to the Turkish Ministry of Justice and the Confederation of European Trade Unions, the Federation of Turkish Trade Unions and international human rights organizations. The former co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party, Selahattin Demirtas, who is being held in Edirne Prison, Model F, wrote a request to the ministry and submitted a request to meet leader Ocalan via the Internet. Also, 756 lawyers from Morocco, Palestine, Başûr Kurdistan, North and East Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan sought to meet the leader Ocalan, but none of these requests were answered.
T/ Satt.
ANHA
