The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), Europe’s anti-torture committee, has confirmed for the first time that they saw and spoke to Abdullah Öcalan during their September 2022 visit to Turkey’s İmralı Island Prison.
Previous to this update, nobody had heard from Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), since March 2021, when he had a brief phone call with his brother. The last in-person visit from a lawyer was in 2019.
“During its last visit to Turkey in 2022 and to İmralı F Type Prison, the delegation of the Committee Against Torture saw and personally interviewed all four prisoners of the prison,” the CPT press representative, Jaime Rodriguez, said while speaking to Alpha News.
Although the CPT last summer concluded a report on the visit to İmralı, it has not yet been released because the CPT requires the approval of the concerned country to release its reports, which Turkey has not granted.
For millions of Kurds, the news that Öcalan was directly spoken to has been eagerly anticipated. The third anniversary of Öcalan’s last documented contact with the outside world was on 25 March 2021.
There have been consistent calls for information concerning the welfare of Öcalan, during Newroz festivals, marches in Istanbul, and a worldwide effort to mark his 25th year of isolation.
Recently, lawyer Cengiz Yürekli accused the CPT of losing credibility and failing in its mission to prevent torture in the case of the PKK leader.
After questions from AlphaNews, the CPT also revealed that this İmralı report is one of three, from a total 30 CPT reports, that Turkey has refused to be published.
