Newroz Uysal, one of Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyers from Asrın Law Bureau, shared with Hawar News Agency her evaluations of the prison isolation conditions that have been imposed upon her client and appealed to supporters of freedom to extend solidarity to the ongoing prison hunger strikes that are taking place in Turkey to protest against these conditions.
“Isolation cannot be explained and understood as someone merely being kept behind bars. It is part of a bigger problem: actually, it is a systemic problem”, she said. “It isn’t only limited to physical isolation: it is social isolation, it is political isolation, it is also isolation from the law”.
Uysal noted that thousands of applications that had been made by her and her colleagues and the families of the prisoners on Imrali island prison to establish contact with Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan and other Imrali prisoners had been rejected since 2011. Even applications to be allowed and make telephone calls had been rejected.
“As lawyers, only five of our applications were accepted out of thousands of applications we have made since 27 July 2011”, she said.
‘Turkey insists on a continous state of war’
“This situation, Turkey’s insistence on isolation, displays Turkey’s insistence on the deadlock, on not solving the Kurdish question. Turkey insists on a continuous state of war, which is not only limited within the borders of Turkey, but gradually spreads to Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan as well”, she stated. “What the governments in Turkey understand from the solution is only ‘military solutions’. They do not want the democratic nation model that our leader Abdullah Öcalan has designed and proposed”.
‘There won’t be peace in the Middle East if the isolation is not lifted’
She underlined that isolation is not just a problem in Turkey, it is a problem throughout the Middle East and the whole world. “There won’t be peace in the Middle East if the isolation is not lifted”, she said. “Dialogue will only be possible if the isolation ends. Mr. Öcalan also stated that in his seven-point declaration that we announced in a public press statement on 6 May 2019. He is ready to initiate dialogue again with regard to the seven points he declared”, Uysal clarified.
Uysal appealed for solidarity amongst all democratic parties in the world: “All the supporters of freedom and democracy who want a better world should extend support to all the protests and initiatives that are being taken to end the isolation”, she said.
