Swedish Left Party's Foreign Policy Spokesperson, Håkan Svenneling, who demanded Sweden to apologize to the Kurds whom it had wrongly accused of killing former Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, brought up yesterday the lawlessness of the Turkish state in Imrali in a written question to the parliament.

Svenneling reminded that a delegation of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) held examinations in some police and penal institutions in Turkey in May last year.

He pointed to the fact that Turkey’s treatment of prisoners including Abdullah Öcalan was criticized in a CPT report released in August this year.

Svenneling denounced the unlawfulness in the treatment of Kurdish People's Leader Öcalan and 3 prisoners in İmralı Island, which was reported by the CPT, with the following statements:

“Prisoners are allowed to have any contact with each other and have extremely limited communication with the outside world. Neither their families nor their lawyers can visit prisoners regularly. Öcalan’s lawyers were able to visit him for the first time since 2011 just before the CPT delegation visited the prison. The delegation submitted a request to Turkey to reduce the isolation of prisoners.”

Svenneling said that the German Government asked Turkey to stop to all kinds of torture and inhuman treatment against prisoners in Turkey and to allow lawyers and families to visit prisoners shortly after the Left Party in Germany (Die Linke) brought up the CPT's reports on Turkey to parliament's agenda

Swedish Left Party Foreign Policy Spokesperson Svenneling asked Sweden to raise the issue in talks with the Turkish Government in order to fulfill the CPT’s demands.