Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been in solitary confinement on the prison island of Imrali since his abduction to Turkey in 1999. The last contact with him was a telephone conversation with his brother in spring 2021, which was interrupted after a few minutes. Öcalan last had contact with his lawyers from the Istanbul-based Asrın Law Office in August 2019. After an eight-year interruption, a hunger strike led by politician Leyla Güven, who has since been imprisoned again, resulted in a total of five visits by lawyers. The last family visit to the island was approved in March 2020. Since then, isolation in the high-security prison has been driven to the level of total incommunicado detention.

After the recent earthquake in Gemlik, from where all boats traveling to Imrali depart, the Kurdish people's concerns about the health and safety of Abdullah Öcalan are increasing.

The Initiative ‘Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan’ in Syria sent a letter to international institutions and organizations and called on them to fulfill their responsibilities.

In the letter sent to 11 international organizations active in the field of human rights and human rights law, attention was drawn to the aggravated isolation of Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan and a call was made to fulfill their responsibilities in the face of his situation.

The call was also supported by the Initiative of Lawyers for the Defence of the Leader Abdullah Öcalan and the North and East Syrian Health Union.

The list of organizations to which the letter was sent includes DMME, Doctors Without Borders, Council of Europe, United Nations Committee on Torture, CPT, Human Rights Council, International Red Cross, WHO, Arab League and Amnesty International.