Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan met with members of his family including pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party MP Ömer Öcalan and, for the first time in 26 years, two of his younger nephews, during an Eid al-Adha visit at İmralı Island Prison on 7 June.
The visit took place under the standard Eid family visitation framework granted to inmates across Turkey. Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on the island since 1999, had not seen the two younger family members since before his capture. He has previously had rare and restricted visits from Ömer Öcalan and some other relatives.
Following the visit, the Kurdish leader issued a short message: “I celebrate our people’s Eid ‘without sacrifice’. Greetings to all our people.” The statement referred to his long-standing view that Eid al-Adha should be marked symbolically, such as by planting trees, rather than by animal sacrifice.
Writing on social media, Ömer Öcalan said the visit had strengthened the family’s faith in the continuing possibility of a process of peace and democratic transformation. “Our belief that this process will open the door to a new politics, a new form of organisation and a new sense of meaning has been boosted,” he wrote.
In total, seven inmates currently held on İmralı — including Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım, Veysi Aktaş, Zeki Bayhan, Mahmut Yamalak and Engin Atabey — were granted family visits during the holiday on the weekend of 7-8 June. Three of the prisoners have recently been transferred to the island.
Located in the Sea of Marmara, İmralı F-Type High Security Prison remains one of the most tightly controlled institutions in Turkey. Contact with Abdullah Öcalan has been heavily restricted in recent years, with long-standing bans on lawyer and family access drawing repeated criticism from rights groups and international observers.
