The Regional Democracy Platform, which includes 344 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from 21 provinces in Iraqi Kurdistan, stated in a declaration that the prison isolation conditions of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan must be lifted. The declaration, which was due to be announced at a meeting in Diyarbakır (Amed) in Turkey, was halted by the police due to ‘pandemic restrictions’.
The Regional Democracy Platform’s statement pointed out that the increasing violation of rights in Turkey and the application of violence had become a part of social life in the country. It stated that the conditions leading to the hunger strike by prisoners in Turkey and the prison isolation conditions of Öcalan must be lifted, taking into account the binding decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The Ministry of Justice and other state institutions were invited to take steps to end the violation of prisoner rights and the isolation policy that was being applied in prisons.
Prisoners across Turkey have been engaged for over 90 days in a hunger strike action that is aimed at ending the prison isolation conditions of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and the human rights violations that are taking place in the country’s prisons.