Lawyers registered in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır (Amed) province have appealed to the Justice Ministry via the bar association, arguing that the total communications ban imposed on Abdullah Öcalan resulted in a violation of their right to conduct professional activity on top of Öcalan’s personal rights, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
Öcalan, the founding leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been serving a life sentence in the İmralı Island Prison in the country’s northwest since 1999. Over the years, there have been brief periods when he was able to regularly meet with his family and lawyers, however, he has been held in absolute incommunicado status since an interrupted phone call with his brother in March 2021. The last in-person visit by his lawyers was in March 2020.
Prison authorities have issued months long bans on Öcalan citing disciplinary issues, effectively taking away the PKK leader’s right to representation and defence. His lawyers argue that the ban is both a violation of Öcalan’s right to legal representation, as recognised in both domestic law and the European Convention on Human Rights, and the lawyers’ right to conduct professional activity, as per Turkey’s laws on the legal profession.
Defending and upholding the rule of law and human rights are recognised as rights for bar associations, and by proxy, lawyers, they argued.
Öcalan not being allowed any contact with the outside world constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which is banned by both Turkey’s Law on Execution of Penalties and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
An inability to meet with legal representatives also violates Öcalan’s right to a fair trial, the lawyers said.
The bar association should appeal to authorities itself in the name of the lawyers to ensure their right to communicate with their client, and for authorities to present appropriate time and location for meetings, and ensure privacy in said meetings with clients as per Turkish law.
What is at stake with Öcalan being under an absolute isolation is “the existence and future of a people, and the status of humanity”, Selahattin Erdem wrote in an article published on Yeni Özgür Politika.
Not allowing visits to İmralı raises suspicions that Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been “developed a new play of special war because it is stuck bad”, Erdem said. “It is clear that bodies such as the CPT should make clarifying statements, instead of this silence that deepens uncertainty.”
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) is among the few international institutions that have the authority to visit the prison independent from Turkey, and meet with Öcalan if they see fit. During a visit in September, a CPT delegation visited İmralı, but did not meet with Öcalan, according to sources speaking to the legal firm that represents Öcalan.
“Everybody including the lawyers knows that Öcalan’s health and safety are at risk. While excessive commenters claim Öcalan had refused to meet with the CPT as a protest, there is no evidence at all that could be read in that way,” Erdem said.
“Commentary is an important tool to reach the truth … But excessive commentary will obscure the truth,” he added.
The AKP’s “fascist dictatorship” is collapsing by the minute, Erdem said, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his far right ally Devlet Bahçeli resort to dirty tricks over Kurds to hold on to power.
“The Kurdish Freedom Movement and the people know this truth well, and act with utmost sensibility and caution. This is how they will approach all words and actions to come,” Erdem said. “But currently, even if it was a trick in the beginning, the current situation has created uncertainty.”
“There are grave risks to Öcalan’s health and safety. … All manner of dangers are present as seen in the contradictory and uncertain statements,” Erdem said. “As such, the level of fight must be developed and varied. We have no way out but to grow the fight.”
Protests throughout the week demanding to hear from Öcalan pushed the matter higher on the public agenda, but “certain left-wing and democratic circles have failed to follow what has been happening”, getting carried away and missing the important developments, Erdem said.
