Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has received yet another visitor ban, perpetuating his absolute incommunicado detention and prompting an appeal to Turkey’s Constitutional Court against the new six-month ban on lawyer visits to Imrali Prison.
His legal team announced that the Imrali prison administration has imposed a new six-month ban on lawyer visits for Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who has been held in absolute isolation for the last 38 months of his 25-year detention to date.
Öcalan has not been heard from since a brief phone call with his brother on 25 March 2021. Despite ongoing concerns about his well-being, Öcalan and three other inmates, Ömer Hayri Konar, Veysi Aktaş, and Hamili Yıldırım, have received a further six-month prohibition on lawyer visits.
Lawyers from the Asrin Law Office submitted a request to Bursa 2nd Execution Judge to facilitate meetings with their clients. “On 3 May, we were informed of a new six-month lawyer visit ban for our clients,” they stated. No reason was given for the decision.
Appeals were rejected, and the lawyers plan to take their case to Turkey’s Constitutional Court. This latest ban marks the 13th prohibition on lawyer visits for Öcalan in the past eight years.
Öcalan’s lawyers last faced a similar six-month ban on 31 October, on ‘security grounds’. The court denied requests for details and case files, and higher court appeals were dismissed.
After the state of emergency declared during the July 2016 coup attempt, lawyer visits to Öcalan were denied until February 2018. Since then, the bans have been repeatedly renewed every six months. Similar restrictions also prevent family visits.
