Isolation is the most inhumane treatment a person can have in a democratic society, Kostis Efstathiou, a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), told Medya News’ Erem Kansoy in a recent interview. Furthermore, the prolonged absolute incommunicado detention imposed by Turkey on Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is the worst case of inhumane treatment recorded in history, the Greek Cypriot politician warned.
“No similar case of inhuman treatment has ever been recorded,” Efstathiou said.
📢PACE member Kostis Efstathiou sheds light on #Turkey's denial of basic human rights to #AbdullahÖcalan, likening his 36-month incommunicado isolation to the worst form of inhumane treatment in history, in this interview with #MedyaNews. (https://t.co/K4hFRNMGQg)… pic.twitter.com/qYpydAewcS
— MedyaNews (@medyanews_) April 10, 2024
“It is outrageous, a country that knocks at the door of the European Union and pretends to be a democratic society denies the visit [inspection] to prisons [by the Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee.]
“Unfortunately, Turkey pays no cost”, he stressed, “and this is alarming.”
Efstathiou compared Öcalan to Nelson Mandela, figures that both “single-handedly gave a people an identity,” while pointing out that the South African icon was not denied contact with the outside world, unlike Öcalan who has been incommunicado for 36 months and detained in isolation on the Turkish high-security prison island since 1999.
“Öcalan is denied everything, and people are afraid for the status of his health and for his life. No information is given. This is not humane treatment,” Efstathiou reiterated.
He pointed out that Azerbaijan was denied participation in PACE due to the country’s dire human rights record – and Turkey, he says, must receive the same exclusion.
“Never give up, continue this beautiful struggle for freedom, peace and democracy,” Efstathiou concluded, “and one day victory will be enjoyed by millions of Kurds, not only in Turkey, but in the whole region.”
Kostis Efstathiou is an esteemed criminal lawyer, an MP for the Cypriot Movement for Social Democracy Party and a Rapporteur on the implementation of the European Court of Human Rights rulings of the Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
