Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples (MRAP), a leading French anti-racism organisation, has urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to intensify scrutiny of Turkey’s human rights practices during its upcoming fifty-ninth session, 16 June–11 July 2025, under Agenda item 2, which reviews the annual report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The call comes amid a fragile peace initiative launched by jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, with the group warning that his continued isolation undermines prospects for democratic reform and violates international law.
In a written statement submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on 20 May and published on 4 June, the MRAP criticised the conditions of Öcalan’s detention and broader violations of Kurdish rights in Turkey. The group called on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to update its 2017 and 2018 reports on southeastern Turkey and to push Ankara to comply with international legal standards.
“The isolation imposed on Abdullah Öcalan and his fellow inmates violates international law and is a major obstacle to resolve the Kurdish issue,” the statement reads, highlighting a “special regime” enforced at İmralı Island Prison that has since been replicated across the Turkish prison system.
Öcalan, the jailed founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been held in near-total solitary confinement for over 26 years. According to MRAP, he has only had five lawyer visits since 2011, the last of which occurred in August 2019, until a political delegation briefly met him in February 2025.
In that rare appearance, Öcalan issued a ‘Call for Peace and Democratic Society’, urging the PKK to disband and calling on the Turkish government to recognise Kurdish identity and free expression. Days later, the PKK declared a ceasefire, effective from 1 March.
Despite this unprecedented development, MRAP argues that the Turkish state has failed to respond with dialogue but instead with continued repression. The UN Committee against Torture (CAT) and the Human Rights Committee (CCPR) both issued warnings in 2024, citing political interference in the judiciary, arbitrary detentions, and overcrowded prisons. CAT noted that decisions affecting prisoner health are often made by administrators rather than medical staff, and that conditional release boards lack independence.
The NGO asserts that Turkey’s use of İmralı as a legal “laboratory” has allowed it to normalise a rights-restricting regime, especially for political prisoners and Kurdish activists. The organisation draws attention to the 2014 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgement, which ruled that Öcalan’s life sentence without parole violated the “right to hope”. Turkey has yet to implement the required legal reforms, MRAP notes, affecting over 4,000 people currently serving similar sentences.
“Despite the passage of nearly 11 years since the Öcalan judgement, thousands of prisoners continue to suffer the severe and destructive consequences of a life sentence regime that does not allow for the right to hope,” the statement adds.
MRAP concluded by calling on the Turkish authorities to implement rulings by the ECtHR and recommendations by UN committees and to permit independent UN monitoring. It also urged the OHCHR to resume field reporting and consider publishing a new update on the human rights situation in Turkey.
While Turkey plays an increasingly prominent role in global diplomacy, MRAP warned, “We cannot turn a blind eye to human rights abuses within the country, particularly against dissident voices and minorities, including the Kurdish people”.
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