The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a prestigious London university founded in 1895, published an article on its Middle East Centre blog on Wednesday, shedding light on the prolonged incommunicado detention of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, the plight of Kurdish political prisoners in Turkey and the importance of their writings in understanding the conditions they face.
The article highlights the lack of response to repeated calls by international human rights organisations to address the systematic torture and inhumane treatment of Öcalan and three other prisoners on İmralı Island. Despite numerous recommendations from bodies such as the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Turkish government has largely ignored pleas to improve conditions and allow basic rights such as regular communication with legal representatives and family members.
The piece highlights the importance of Kurdish prisoner writings, particularly in raising international awareness of the harsh realities they face.
“After being left to only speculate on the conditions of detention in the isolation of İmralı Prison, English-language books on the subject provide a vital resource for Western social scientists and policymakers to understand the conditions of imprisonment faced by Kurds,” writes author Alex Creamer.
Among the notable works discussed are Öcalan’s ‘Prison Writings – The Roots of Civilisation’, which provides a historical and theoretical perspective on the Kurdish struggle, and Sakine Cansiz’s ‘Sara: Prison Memoir of a Kurdish Revolutionary’, which offers first-hand accounts of the brutality within the Turkish prison system.
The article also draws attention to Behrouz Boochani’s ‘No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison’, which highlights the wider issue of state repression against Kurdish individuals and others fighting for their rights.
As one of the world’s leading institutions in its fields, with a strong reputation for its focus on the social sciences, including economics, politics, sociology, law, anthropology and international relations, the LSE’s involvement in highlighting the Kurdish issue on the 25th anniversary of Öcalan’s imprisonment underlines its importance on the global stage.
