Lawyers from Asrın Law Office, who act for the jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, have called on the UN Torture Special Rapporteur for urgent intervention concerning the 39-month incommunicado detention of him and three other inmates in Turkey’s İmralı Prison.
On 17 May, the lawyers submitted a request for urgent action to the UN, detailing the absolute isolation and severe conditions faced by Öcalan and the three other inmates of the prison, Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım and Veysi Aktaş. The lawyers also made an application to the rapporteur responsible for monitoring the independence of legal professionals, citing numerous impediments to their duties.
The application highlights the need for immediate evaluation to prevent irreparable harm. The lawyers referred to a 6 September 2023 UN Human Rights Committee request for measures to be taken, noting that Turkey has not yet complied with these recommendations. “The situation requires urgent consideration to prevent irreversible damage,” they stressed.
The application also addresses violations impacting legal representation, such as the prevention of legal visits, the enforcement of disciplinary measures without legal counsel and the refusal to provide case documents. The lawyers emphasised the critical importance of a coordinated effort by the UN rapporteurs to address these issues.
In their submission, the lawyers requested that the UN:
– Urgently review the application.
– Demand the end of incommunicado conditions, allowing family and legal visits.
– Conduct an on-site inspection of İmralı Prison.
– Report on the treatment of the detainees.
– Monitor and follow up on prison conditions.
– Publicly disclose their findings.
Last month, the law office revealed that the release of Öcalan’s fellow inmate Aktaş, which had been due on 28 April after a 30-year sentence, was postponed by a year, exacerbating concerns about the inmates’ conditions. “We have no information on our clients’ health or conditions since a phone call that was abruptly curtailed on 25 March 2021,” lawyer Rezan Sarıca stated, adding that the refusal to release Aktaş “significantly heightens concerns about our clients’ welfare”.
This application is not the first of its kind. Previously, on 10 February 2022, the lawyers for Abdullah Öcalan made a similar application to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, seeking urgent action against the severe isolation of their client. At that time, they had been without any new information on their clients for nearly 10 months. Their application highlighted a particularly troubling incident from 25 March 2021, when a phone call between Öcalan and his brother was abruptly terminated after just a few minutes. The Turkish authorities had imposed a series of bans on visits, including a six-month ban on Öcalan specifically, which was cited as the reason for rejecting a November 2021 request for a meeting.
After a visit to the country in September 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee instructed Turkey to allow the prisoners unrestricted access to a lawyer of their choice, but this has had no effect, despite a renewal of the request in January 2023.
During the visit in September 2022, which was aimed at evaluating the implementation of its prior recommendations, evidence of torture in various detention settings, including prisons and police stations, was reviewed and Suzanne Jabbour, Chair of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT), had held discussions with Hakan Çavuşoğlu, Chairman of Turkey’s Human Rights Investigation Commission. Despite evidence, Çavuşoğlu had claimed that systematic torture does not occur within the country, dismissing allegations of torture as “manipulations by terrorist organisations to undermine Turkey’s political stance”.
This stance prompted the lawyers of Abdullah Öcalan to intensify their efforts, crafting a detailed response to Turkey’s claims in their UN submission, thereby setting the stage for their recent urgent application for the body to address the incommunicado detention conditions at İmralı Prison.
Since then, the arbitrary bans have continued unabated, leading to what many critics describe as an extremely prolonged period of isolation, termed as incommunicado detention. This isolation is often compared to historical instances, including that of Nelson Mandela, to highlight its severity and duration in the context of global human rights discussions.
Raziye Öztürk from the law office discussed their urgent application to the UN Human Rights Committee with MedyaNews on Monday 10 June. She highlighted the critical communication blackout since a disrupted phone call on 25 March 2021, emphasising the severity of the situation. “We have not been able to receive any information about our clients since that brief phone call, which was in itself concerning as the connection was cut off,” Öztürk explained.
The lawyers had previously made numerous unsuccessful applications, leading to a pivotal submission on 29 July 2022. “We had also requested precautionary measures in our submission to the Human Rights Committee,” she stated. Despite these efforts, the requested attorney consultations were not facilitated, prompting repeated notifications and reiterations of their requests to the Turkish government through the Human Rights Committee, as yet still without success.
Öztürk detailed their extensive engagement with various UN commissions, sub-commissions and rapporteurships, and numerous NGOs in communication with the UN, urging them to press the UN into action. Their latest plea was directed at the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the rapporteurship on the independence of judges and lawyers, stressing the ongoing incommunicado detention as a breach of the prohibition against torture.
“We have documented the situation in İmralı as one of torture in our application, which is also supported by Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) reports and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decisions,” she said. Öztürk also raised concerns about the denial despite his eligibility of Veysi Aktaş’s conditional release, attributing it to a broader pattern of rights violations at İmralı and indicative of the Turkish government’s reluctance to disclose information about conditions in the high-security prison.
The demands outlined in the submission to the UN call for immediate action on several fronts, including urgent review of their application, cessation of incommunicado detention, permitting family and legal visits, an on-site inspection of İmralı Prison conditions and public reporting on the findings. “These are all actions within the mandate of the UN bodies we have applied to,” Öztürk emphasised.
