Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been issued a renewed six-month ban on receiving legal visits, according to his lawyers. No justification has been provided for the decision.
The ban also applies to Öcalan’s fellow prisoners, Ömer Hayri Konar, Veysi Aktaş, and Hamili Yıldırım, who are being held alongside him on the Turkish island prison of İmralı.
Asrın Law Office, which represents Öcalan, applied to the Bursa 2nd Execution Court seeking permission to visit their client. During this process, the lawyers learned of the renewed ban, which had been issued on 6 November. The court cited the restrictions as grounds for rejecting their application but provided no explanation for the extension.
Öcalan was arrested in 1999 as part of an international operation, which Kurds refer to as the ‘international conspiracy’. He has been held for over 25 years, most of which he has spent in complete isolation. His most recent period of incommunicado detention lasted for 43 months, in which he received no visits or phone calls from his lawyers or family members. The prison authorities have been under intense international pressure as a result of a global campaign for Öcalan’s freedom.
The almost four-year period of extreme isolation was broken only by a short visit with his nephew last month.
The ban on lawyer visits imposed during the State of Emergency declared in July 2016 remained in effect until February 2018. After this period, Öcalan’s legal visits were systematically prohibited through six-month renewable bans. With the latest decision, Abdullah Öcalan has now faced at least 14 bans on lawyer visits in the past eight years.
A similar regime applies to family visitation at İmralı, and a renewed three-month ban on family visits was imposed earlier this month.
The previous ban on lawyer visits, imposed in May 2024, also lacked any justification. The authorities denied requests to access the case file and rejected an appeal to the high court.
Asrin Law Office is planning to make an appeal to the Constitutional Court over the ban.
