Kurdish lawyer Newroz Uysal faces up to 15 years in prison in Turkey. Uysal is part of the defence team of the Istanbul-based Asrin Law Office, which represents Abdullah Öcalan and his three fellow prisoners in the maximum security prison Imrali, and is accused of membership in a terrorist organisation.

At today's trial before the 10th Heavy Penal Court in Diyarbakir (Amed), the prosecution demanded a prison sentence of between seven and a half and 15 years. Uysal is charged with participating in activities of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) and in a WhatsApp group in which lawyers exchanged information about rights violations in the course of the curfews in Northern Kurdistan seven years ago.

The defendant herself did not attend the hearing and was represented by her defence lawyers Gulan Çağın Kaleli and Mehdi Özdemir. After the prosecution's plea, the court ordered the continuation of the existing reporting requirements against Uysal. The trial was adjourned until 15 March.

Newroz Uysal is one of the last people to have met Abdullah Öcalan in person. Together with her colleague Rezan Sarıca, the lawyer was able to visit her client a few times on the prison island of Imrali between May and August 2019. Prior to this, a ban on visits by Öcalan's legal counsel was maintained for eight years. The visit was won through a mass hunger strike initiated by Kurdish politician Leyla Güven. In the conversation, Öcalan and his fellow prisoners Hamili Yıldırım, Ömer Hayri Konar and Veysel Aktaş delivered a message calling for a dignified peace and a political solution to the Kurdish question and problems in Turkey.

Since August 2019, the defence team has had no contact with Öcalan. The last sign of life was a brief phone call with his brother Mehmet Öcalan in March 2021. Newroz Uysal stated at the last hearing in the trial against her in September that the real reason for the indictment was the fact that she was defending Abdullah Öcalan.