An international delegation, organized by the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) and consisting of 13 members from Europe and North America has arrived in Amed today and met with officials from DTK and DBP.
An international delegation, organized by the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) and consisting of 13 members from Europe and North America, including Members of European Parliament and of the Council of Europe, academics, and journalists, has arrived in Turkey. The delegation has scheduled meetings with representatives from the Kurdish Freedom Movement, political parties, trade unions, and other civil society organizations.
The delegation includes: two current Members of the European Parliament, Costas Mavrides and Julie Ward; one former MEP, Francis Wurtz; two current representatives from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Miren Edurne Gorrotxategi and Ulla Sandbaek; a former Member of Iceland’s Parliament and trade unionist, Ögmundur Jonasson; the veteran Foreign Correspondent for The Guardian, Jonathan Steele; the Chair of the Westminster Justice and Peace Commission, Father Joe Ryan; two members of the Advisory Board of the Transnational Institute for Social Ecology, Dimitri Roussopoulos and Federico Venturini; and a Lecturer from the University of Cambridge, Thomas Jeffrey Miley.
The delegation has applied to the Turkish Minister of Justice, requesting a meeting with the leader of the Kurdish Freedom Movement, Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned and isolated in inhumane conditions on Imrali Island for over nineteen years now. The delegation will prepare a report about its findings, which it plans to distribute widely and to present to the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations, among other international organizations.
In a letter to the Turkish Minister of Justice on behalf of the Delegation, sent on the 30 th of January, MEP Julie Ward wrote: “Mr. Bekir Bozdağ, we ask you to give us permission so that we can visit İmralı Prison, consult with Mr. Öcalan, and inform him so that the peace process can restart. We believe that Öcalan will give peaceful support to the Kurdish issue and the democratization process in Turkey. The Delegation asks for your permission to visit İmralı Prison on February 17, 18 or 19, 2017. If it is not possible for the entire delegation to visit, we ask that a small group visits the prison. We ask you to give your permission to a group that would be chosen from the delegation to visit İmralı. We also ask you to meet with one of our colleagues and exchange ideas on the restart of the peace process before the meeting with Mr. Öcalan. We will be honored if you respond to our requests positively. We await your response due to the seriousness and urgency of the situation.”
The delegation has arrived in Amed today and made its first visit to the Democratic Society Congress (DTK). The delegation later visited the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Amed Headquarters, greeted by DBP Deputy Co-chairs Ramazan Tunç and Mehmet Salih Yıldız and DBP Women's Assembly Spokesperson Fatma Gül.
After an hour-long meeting closed to the press here, Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley spoke on behalf of the delegation and said the followings:
'CONDITIONS AT İMRALI ARE INHUMANE'
"The goal of our delegation, composed of 13 parliamentarians, journalists and academics, is to meet with Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan. To this end, we have applied to the Turkish Ministry of Justice. As you know, Mr. Öcalan has been living under inhumane conditions on İmralı Island for 19 years now. We will visit and exchange information with the Kurdish Freedom Movement, non-governmental organizations and political parties during our trip. Later, we want to meet with HDP parliamentarians should we be allowed to do so."
“AKP TRIES NOT TO REFLECT THE HAPPENINGS ON THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA”
Speaking after, Danish parliamentarian Ulla Sandbaek stated that: "Thousands of politicians have been detained and arrested in Turkey recently. The information we receive and what we see for ourselves prove a critical abuse of human rights here. The AKP government is trying hard to obstruct the reflection of the human rights violations perpetrated here on the international arena but we will do our best to facilitate the discussion of the developments here in the international arena."
In the meantime, the delegation has written another letter to the Minister of Justice and the Director General of Prison Houses and Detention Centers, in which they reiterated their request to visit Öcalan, and asked to visit the HDP C0-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ. The letter reads:
"We have already written to request a meeting with the Minister of Justice and permission to visit Mr. Abdullah Öcalan at Imrali Prison during our visit. We eagerly await your response. In the meantime, we write again to also request permission to visit the Co-Chairs of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Mr. Selahattin Demirtaş and Ms. FigenYüksekdağ, currently imprisoned in Edirne and Kocaeli, respectively. We are aware that in September two members of the Swedish Parliament were permitted to visit the co-Chairs. We request the same opportunity as a broad-based international delegation, because we believe that the leaders of the HDP can play an important role in giving support to the peace process in Turkey.
The Delegation asks for your permission to visit the prisons in Edirne and/or Kocaeli on February 17, 18 or 19, 2017. If it is not possible for the entire delegation to visit, we ask that a small group be allowed to visit the prisons. We ask you to give your permission to a group that would be chosen from the delegation.
We will be honored if you respond to our requests positively. The acceptance of our request would provide a positive sign about the state of the rule of law and democracy in the country. We eagerly await your response, given the seriousness and urgency of the situation.”
