The Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has published today its general report on its activities covering the year 2022. In this report, the Committee calls on European states to put an end to unlawful pushback practices and the ill-treatment of foreign nationals deprived of their liberty in the context of forced removals at borders.

In the course of 2022, the CPT organised 16 visits (totalling 140 days), including seven periodic visits and nine ad hoc visits. According to the report, CPT also visited the Imrali Island Prison, where Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been held since his arrest and handover to Turkey as a result of an international conspiracy in 1999. The report, however, does not provide any information on the conditions of the Kurdish leader who has been held in incommunicado detention in violation of domestic and international laws and standards since his imprisonment. Together with three fellow inmates, Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım, and Veysi Aktaş, he remains subject to a detention regime of strict isolation. All four prisoners are barred from any communication with their families as well as with their lawyers.

“The main objective of the visit to Turkey in September was to examine the treatment and conditions of detention of foreign nationals detained under immigration legislation as well as the procedures applied to them in the context of their removal. On the occasion of the visit, the delegation also went to Imralı F-type High-Security Prison, in order to examine the treatment and conditions of detention of the four prisoners currently held in the establishment. In this regard, particular attention was paid to the communal activities offered to the prisoners and contact with the outside world,” said the CPT report.