Öcalan’s family appeals to visit him in Imrali prison
The families of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan and other prisoners in the Imralı prison, Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım and Veysi Aktaş have appealed to Turkish authorities to visit them.
The families applied to the Imrali F Type High Security Closed Penitentiary Institution through the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in Bursa.
Kurdish leader Öcalan has been kept in isolation in the Imrali island prison since 1999. There has been no news from Öcalan for the last two years.
The lawyers are requesting to meet the Kurdish leader twice a week. However, their requests are systematically left unanswered. In some cases, the lawyers are informed months later about disciplinary punishments against the Kurdish leader.
Concerns over the situation of the Kurdish leader increased after the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) visited the Imrali prison on September 20-29. In a statement on October 3, the CPT announced that Imralı F Type High Security Prison was among the institutions it had visited.
However, in a statement on November 29, the Asrın Law Office revealed that during the CPT visit, "there was no meeting with Öcalan, which raised concerns."
