İmralı prisoners, including Abdullah Öcalan, are not in isolation and enjoy all legal rights,” the General Directorate of Prisons stated on Tuesday.
The response follows an application by the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party legislators, made on 7 December 2023, for the cessation of the solitary confinement on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan. They urged that family and lawyer visits be reinstated. The application detailed the restrictions on communication including bans on phone, fax and mail, as well as the denial of visits from family, guardians and lawyers, severing all connections with the outside world.
Furthermore, the most recent phone contact reported with Öcalan was a disrupted call on 25 March 2021, after which there has been no further news from him. From the end of 2022, 238 lawyer and 79 family or guardian applications received no response. In their latest application, lawmakers also requested that İmralı be visited by family, lawyers or a political delegation.
In defence, the General Directorate of Prisons referred to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decisions, asserting that “to speak of isolation, a prisoner’s communication with their lawyer, relatives or other prisoners must be completely eliminated.” They claimed that inmates participate in communal activities and that there are no barriers to lawyers and relatives meeting as per regulations. Additionally, they dismissed the observations cited in the applications as “unfounded”.
Notably, the Directorate mentioned that in 2023, the Institution Administration and Observation Board imposed a six-month phone restriction on Öcalan and other prisoners, a decision that was not contested by the applicants. However, Öcalan’s lawyers responded by saying that they haven’t been informed about the decision. Prison authorities also claimed that in 2023, Öcalan had access to letters, fax and other forms of communication, providing with no evidence of such an access since Öcalan has not seen his legal representatives.
The Directorate stated that prisoners have the right to object to institutional practices and cited the independence of judicial decisions, claiming that the administration cannot influence or advise the judiciary in any manner.
The Directorate’s response highlights the Turkish state’s approach of obscuring the reality of isolation behind bureaucratic and legal jargon, effectively shielding the conditions from public scrutiny. This strategy is reinforced by the prohibition of family visits, lawyer access and the non-disclosure of the European anti-torture committee’s (CPT) report, leaving the public unable to verify or challenge the official claims.
