AMED - Drawing attention to the absolute isolation imposed on PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan, 1,330 lawyers from 35 bar associations applied to the Ministry of Justice to meet with Öcalan.

 

1,330 lawyers from 35 bar associations applied to the Ministry of Justice to meet with Öcalan, demanding end to PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan's absolute isolation for 34 months. Among them, Lawyers Association for Freedom (ÖHD), Contemporary Lawyers Association (ÇHD), many bar association member lawyers and rights and law institutions made a press statement in front of Diyarbakır Courthouse regarding the application. People's Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) MPs George Aslan, Saliha Aydeniz, Serhat Eren, Newroz Uysal Aslan, Dilan Kunt Ayan and Cengiz Çiçek also participated and supported the statement.

 

'PERMANENT BAN AFTER 7 AUGUST 2019'

 

Making a joint statement agreed upon by the participants, ÖHD Co-Chair Ekin Yeter drew attention to the absolute isolation on İmralı Island. Yeter said:

 

“As it is known, Mr. Abdullah Öcalan, Mr. Ömer Hayri Konar, Mr. Hamili Yıldırım and Mr. Veysi Aktaş, who are being held in İmralı Type F High Security Prison, are unlawfully prevented from meeting with their lawyers.

 

As we have brought to the agenda many times before and informed you, Mr. Abdullah Öcalan and other prisoners, Mr. Veysi Aktaş, Mr. Hamili Yıldırım and Mr. Ömer Hayri Konar, have not been allowed to meet with their lawyers since 2015, when they were transferred to İmralı Island, since 7 August 2019.

 

The ban on seeing a lawyer continued uninterruptedly for 8 years, from 27 July 2011 to 2 May 2019, and 5 meetings with a lawyer were held in 2019, and the uninterrupted ban was restarted after the last lawyer's opinion on 7 August 2019.

 

CPT EVALUATION

 

During the process, CPT (European Committee for the Prevention of Torture), in their report announced on 5 August 2020 regarding their visit to İmralı Prison in 2019, evaluated that there was a complete ban on Öcalan and the other three prisoners' contact with the outside, and that this situation was a kind of absolute incommunicado. In their assessment, the CPT stated that such a situation is unacceptable and contrary to relevant international human rights instruments and standards.

 

THE EXECUTION LAW IS CLEARLY VIOLATED

 

Banning lawyers from visiting İmralı Prison not only clearly violates the Execution Law No. 5275, but also violates international rules and human rights conventions. We would like to remind once again that states are obliged to ensure that detainees and prisoners exercise their rights, regardless of their identities and their sentences. Turkey is not free from this obligation.

 

APPLICATIONS MADE IN 2022 REMAINED UNRESPONDED

 

In accordance with local and international law and ethical rules, lawyers must be able to carry out their professional activities and meet with their clients without facing any pressure, obstruction, harassment or corrupt interference.

 

We, the lawyers, as 775 lawyers registered to 29 different bar associations across Turkey, applied to the Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and İmralı Prison Administration in 2022 to request that lawyer visits be carried out as soon as possible, to demand compliance with these rules and against the lack of news created by legal, illegal and illegitimate prohibition and restriction decisions. We were found. No response was given to the applications made by hundreds of lawyers, including bar association presidents, in 2022.

 

LAWYER APPLICATIONS FROM 22 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES ARE UNRESPONDED

 

Subsequently, 350 lawyers from 22 different countries, especially European countries, applied to the Ministry of Justice on September 14, 2022, and 756 lawyers from the Middle East on September 19, 2022, and asked to meet with the prisoners in İmralı Island Prison and demanded end to the ongoing violations. However, these demands were also left unanswered.

 

We would like to underline once again that the efforts made by lawyers for a long time against isolation and violation of the right to defense are essentially a struggle to implement the rights protected by the rules and international agreements to which Turkey is a party, especially the European Convention on Human Rights.

 

APPLICATION TO THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

 

Today, we would like to share with you that we have sent our application to the Ministry of Justice demanding to meet with Mr. Abdullah Öcalan, Mr. Ömer Hayri Konar, Mr. Hamili Yıldırım and Mr. Veysi Aktaş, who are prisoned in İmralı for these reasons. We, 1,330 lawyers from 35 bar associations, repeat our demand to end to this ongoing unlawfulness for a moment."