Kurdish political prisoners in Turkey have intensified protest action amid ongoing hunger strikes, now boycotting court appearances and refusing family contact and telephone communications. This move comes as part of a broader campaign for the release of Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue.
The prison protests began on 27 November with rotational hunger strikes. Since 4 April, Öcalan’s birthday, the actions entered a new phase as a response to the discriminatory and oppressive practices faced in Turkish courts, perceived as dismissive of Kurdish rights.
“The refusal to attend court hearings and to communicate by phone or family visits is shaped by the need for a new phase in our hunger strike action, beginning on 4 April,” one prisoner explained, cited by Mezopotamya Agency.
Supporters of the Kurdish cause argue that ending Öcalan’s absolute isolation on the Turkish prison island of İmralı is crucial for resuming peace negotiations between the PKK and the Turkish government. Freedom for the Kurdish leader is viewed as key to a broader recognition and resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey.
The prisoner’s protest action aligns with a global campaign, ‘Freedom for Öcalan, a political solution to the Kurdish issue’, launched in October last year in a renewed effort to press for accountability and demand action from relevant institutions and governments on the practice of absolute isolation imposed on Öcalan by Turkish prison authorities.
The practice has been condemned internationally as torture, with lawyers and family forbidden contact for the last three years of the prisoner’s solitary confinement on the high-security island since 1999.
