Asrın Law Office advocating Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan issued a written statement on the anniversary of the February 15 1999 International Conspiracy against the Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan.

The statement recalled that Öcalan has been held under unlawful conditions in İmralı High Security Prison for 18 years and added: “This process from the international conspiracy to the unlawfullness in İmralı is the darkest answer in the 21st century to Mr. Öcalan’s journey for peace. We condemn the international conspiracy entering its 19th year once more today.”

“A CUSTOM-MADE EXECUTION REGIME”

The statement included the following:

“The İmralı Island Prison Regime that is based on Mr. Öcalan being handed over to Turkey against national and international law continues on its 18th anniversary as a regime that has all constitutional and legal rights suspended. Back when Mr. Öcalan was in Kenya, the İmralı Island Prison was evacuated and turned into a ‘Single Person Closed Prison’ from a ‘Semi-Open Prison’, and was declared ‘Military Prohibited Zone’ right after.

From the İmralı hearings to the limitation in the first years for ‘4 hours twice a week’ meetings with lawyers, to phone calls, to right to meet with 3 people outside of his family, to right to access to information, almost all legal rights have been abolished in the İmralı Island Prison Regime, and the custom-made execution regime is out in the open today.

“580 APPEALS REJECTED”

Throughout the years, Mr. Öcalan was allowed lawyer and family visits only arbitrarily, and as of today, has all rights suspended. Lawyer visits have been prohibited in İmralı since July 27, 2011. Since that time, 580 appeals to meet with our client have been rejected. Family visits have only been allowed according to the political conjuncture, as an exception, and even that in every 2 years. 80 appeals for family visits have been filed in 2016 alone, but only one of these was actualized, and it was tied to the political developments. In the current situation, his lawyers and his family hasn’t heard from Mr. Öcalan since September 11, 2016. The legal cover for this is the Bursa 1st Execution Court’s decree that “All visits and communications with İmralı have been banned”, citing the state of emergency.

“THE ISOLATION IN IMRALI SPREAD OVER THE SOCIETY”

The practices in İmralı that act as a litmus test for Turkey’s judicial report card have spread to other prisons today. The decimation of the law has spread from the İmralı Island Prison to prisons on land. The practice of recording lawyer-client meetings and having an officer present between 2005 and 2011 in İmralı can now be implemented in any prison today. The limiting of family visits put into law with the latest statutory decrees had been implemented in İmralı with no legal regulations for years. These examples show that the unlawfulness that started with the isolation of one person, Mr Öcalan in İmralı, has spread to all opposition prisoners and social groups and has become an “ordinary injustice”.

Today, the rights violations in İmralı Prison and all other prisons have reached alarming levels. The “Penal Institutions Security Services Act” proposal submitted by the Ministry of Justice to the Parliament is drafted with the confidence created by the silence in the face of injustice that started in İmralı and continued for years. The realities of İmralı Single Person Execution Regime and the High Security Type F Prisons is out in the open, still the new draft aims to completely destroy the identities of political prisoners.

On the 18th anniversary of the pirate law that rules over İmralı, we call on the government once more to abandon these practices, and we call on all democrat law people to raise the democratic legal struggle against these anti-democratic practices that are an expression of a social governance mindset as a whole and thus is relevant to all our futures.”