An international conference was held in Istanbul on Saturday, organised by the Delegation of International Lawyers Against Isolation and the Turkey-based Association of Lawyers for Freedom. The conference focused on the continued isolation of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who has been held in solitary confinement in İmralı Island Prison in northwest Turkey for 25 years.
The delegation of international legal experts, consisting of 12 lawyers from Sweden, South Africa, Spain, Italy and Norway, recently visited Turkey to campaign against the government’s isolation policy. Saturday’s conference is part of their efforts to continue to draw attention to the conditions of strict isolation faced by political prisoners in Turkey, particularly the PKK leader.
Speakers at the conference emphasised that the isolation of Öcalan has deepened the war policy in the Kurdish question in Turkey, and called for dialogue instead of conflict to solve this long-standing issue.
The event attracted a lot of interest, with the participation of prominent personalities such as People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party mayoral candidates for Istanbul Meral Danış Beştaş and Murat Çepni, Democratic Regions Party (DBP) co-chair Çiğdem Kılıçgün Uçar, Human Rights Association (İHD) co-chair Eren Keskin and a number of DEM Party MPs.
Divided into three sessions, the conference shed light on the details of the system in İmralı, with Faik Özgür Erol, a member of Öcalan’s team of lawyers, highlighting the complete lack of communication. Erol also stressed that the main purpose of isolation is to undermine the resistance of the person subjected to it.
Addressing the conference, Kisten Govender, a member of Nelson Mandela’s team of lawyers, drew parallels between Mandela and Öcalan, noting that both leaders faced similar oppression and were labelled “terrorists” for their struggle for justice. Govender remarked that it had been a missed opportunity that Mandela and Öcalan could not meet, as such a meeting could have furthered the Kurdish struggle for freedom.
The conference concluded with renewed calls for an end to the isolation of Öcalan and for peaceful dialogue as the way to resolve the Kurdish question in Turkey.
