An appeal by the lawyers of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), for his family to be able to visit him was rejected yet again on Tuesday due to an ‘extended disciplinary action’ of three months.
An appeal for family visits had earlier been rejected in October 2021 due to a three-month-ban issued in August. Although the ban ended on 18 November 2021, a new appeal at that time wasn’t even responded to.
The last time Öcalan could have any contact with a family member was 25 March in 2021, when he could only have a very brief phone conversation with his brother Mehmet Öcalan. The conversation was abruptly cut off after only a few minutes.
The latest rejection of the appeal for family visits has been recorded as the 10th in a series of rejections since 2018.
Abdullah Öcalan, subjected to severe solitary confinement in an island prison in Turkey, is also denied visits from his own team of lawyers.
When his lawyers appealed for permission to visit their clients on 22 November 2021, the appeal was rejected on grounds that a six-month-ban on visits, separate from the one concerning family visits, had been imposed upon Öcalan on 12 October.
The last time the lawyers were able to contact him was in August 2019.
A group of lawyers representing Öcalan had appealed to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture in February 2022 for urgent action against the severe isolation imposed on Öcalan and three other political prisoners in similar conditions.
