ANKARA - Lawyer Faik Özgür who filed an appeal with a request of immediate action to the Constitutional Court of Turkey due to not being able to communicate with and hear news from the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan said, "the communication with Öcalan is prevented," and called for the inhuman isolation conditions in İmralı Prison to be terminated, especially demanding the ban on the communication rights of Öcalan to be lifted.

 

The lawyers from Asrın Law Bureau who have been defending the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım and Veysi Aktaş imprisoned in İmralı Type F Hıgh Security Prison filed an application to the Constitutional Court (AYM) on June 19.

 

After an eight-year ban on lawyer-client meeting, Öcalan was allowed to be visited by his lawyers Rezan Sarıca and Nevroz Uysal on May 2, May 22, June 12, June 18 and Aug. 7 in 2019, but his lawyers haven’t been receiving any responses to the 86 applications they filed to visit Öcalan ever since. Öcalan could use his telephone right for the first time on April 27 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but after that no news have been heard from neither Öcalan nor other 3 prisoners on the island.

 

Lawyer Faik Özgür Erol from Asrın Law Bureau talked to Mezopotamya Agency (MA) regarding the health conditions and the unjust applications his clients face in İmralı Island Prison. 

 

ISLAND CLIMATE AND 21 YEARS OF ISOLATION: 'RISK ON ÖCALAN'S HEALTH'

 

Emphasizing that Öcalan has chronic diseases Erol said, "He has chronic upper respiratory tract disease. We also know that he had had a small operation in İmralı due to the oil glands in his head in the recent years. He had a problem with his eyes that we could observe in our meetings.There are many risks in terms of health the İmralı system brings along. One should definitely take it into consideration that there are some results of being exposed to the humidity of the island for such a long time. The island environment has been an effective ground for some of the diseases Öcalan had to rather progress. In the past, we have witnessed that the respiratory disease has progressed rapidly under the island conditions causing severe respiratory problems that keeps them sleepless at night, especially in the case of Mr. Öcalan. The ages, the time spent in prison and the chronic diseases of Öcalan and his three friends should also be taken into account as distinct factors as a whole when considering these conditions. In case of Öcalan, what is harder than the 20 years of island climate is the isolation of the 21-years-of imprisonment. Risks during the COVID-19 pandemic have just raised the threads on Öcalan's health, which are already structural threads in İmralı Prison. Right at the beginning of the pandemic process, we applied to all related institutions and asked a series of questions regarding the level of measures in İmralı, whether it was possible to access protective, disinfecting, hygienic materials, whether coronavirus tests were conducted or not. The most important reason that we raised such questions is the isolation. We had no chance to visit him like in the other prisons or at least to be informed by him over a phone call. The legal process that started with this process that we had no answer back has prepared our Constitutional Court application."

 

'DISCIPLINARY TRIALS AS SECRET LEGAL PRACTICES HIDDEN FROM LAWYERS'

 

Erol also mentioned the arbitrary disciplinary sanctions in İmralı, which are repeatedly given to Öcalan and other 3 prisoners the grounds of which they have been given no information especially for the last 2.5 years saying, "We have no idea on what grounds the disciplinary penalties have been given for the last 2.5 years! Because they never show us the lawyers the files regarding those penalties, they even hide some of the disciplinary penalties from us. We have seen the political sovereigns have neglected the law, but in case of İmralı they literally abduct the law trying to hide disciplinary trials, which they conduct almost discretely for 2.5 years, they try to hide a legal process from the lawyers. This is such a weird situation. They try to combine legal isolation with the physical isolation in İmralı isolation system. So the disciplinary trials inside the İmralı Prison to have turned into secret trial practices are the most important ground for our application to Constitutional Court."

 

HEAVY ISOLATION, NON-COMMUNICATION AND PANDEMIC

 

Erol emphasizes an issue that he thinks the national and international public should be very carefully paying attention: "In the past, while the practices such as restrictions on visit, recording the lawyer-client interviews were imposed in İmralı, but it was not legal. However, such impositions to be applied 'only in İmralı' led the democratic public to ignore these violations of rights. Since 2016, we have seen that the restrictions in İmralı have been imposed in all other prisons as well as to the whole society, as these have also become legalized and justified. That is a risk that we should draw attention. Our application to Constitutional Court includes the violations both by the disciplinary trials inside the İmralı Prison and by the non-examinable conditions of the İmralı system. The motion for injunction we filed expresses an urgent demand for the removal of conditions involving ill-treatment caused by heavy isolation and non-communication combined with pandemic conditions. Although our application focuses on a specific conditions which requires immediate release, we cannot ignore the fact that İmralı isolation has been increasingly imposed for 20 years and Mr. Öcalan was held in solitary confinement in İmralı for more than 10 years which was declared as a violation of the article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the 'torture and maltreatment'. 

 

'SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR 23 HOURS A DAY'

 

Erol tells more about the isolation system in İmralı, imposed not just on Öcalan, but also on the other prisoner which were taken to İmralı after him: "After that 5 other prisoners have been taken to İmralı, but they were forced to spent the 23 hours of the day in solitary confinement, as they were allowed to see each other 1 hour a day, 5 times a week. This was exactly the same restriction imposed on the prisoners taken to İmralı in 2015. Now there are 3 prisoners in İmralı other than Mr. Öcalan and they are able to see each other 1 hour a day, 5 days a week. In addition to this isolation inside the prison, a strict isolation regarding the communication with the outside have begun to be applied since 2015. Between July 2011-May 2019 no lawyer or family visit was allowed.  Weekly phone call right has never been allowed in İmralı before anyway. After four lawyers were allowed to visit Mr Öcalan in 2019, the visits have been interrupted as of August 2019 all of a sudden again. During the pandemic Ministry of Justice has increased the weekly telephone right of the prisoners to twice a week, which was once a week before the pandemic. We also applied for this right to be used in İmralı, but only on April 27, they have allowed only one phone call and that's all. 

 

'THE CONTINUOUS BAN ON COMMUNICATION SHOULD IMMEDIATELY BE LIFTED'

 

Referring to the "systematic state of non-communication" in İmralı Prison Erol explains the nature of their application to the Constitutional Court of Turkey: "Therefore we can talk about a systematic state of non-communication forced in İmralı which has been extended over rather a long period of time. This state of non-communication of long years has broken İmralı off civil and legal inspection opportunities and when it combined with pandemic conditions, it increased the level of anxiety and suffering. When all this is combined, we cannot only and simply detect a violation of the communication right, but also an inhuman maltreatment caused by an indefinite and systematic ban on communication. This is the content of our request for action in its most abstract form. We demand from the Constitutional Court to immediately end the current inhuman condition of continuous state of non-communication in İmralı Prison. The Constitutional Court is required to rule the decision on such an application 'immediately' as defined by the law.  If the Constitutional Court keeps its silence, we will carry our application to the European Court of Human Rights."

 

MA / Berivan Altan