There has been no news for 9 months from PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been under heavy isolation in İmralı High Security F Type Closed Prison for 23 years. Despite all the applications made by his family and lawyers, they are not allowed to meet with Öcalan. Evaluating the aggravated isolation against Öcalan, writer Mukaddes Erdoğdu Çelik stated that democracy cannot be brought to Turkey with this  hostility against Kurds. Pointing out that fascism is wanted to be built through isolation, trustees and occupation policies in Turkey, Çelik said, "A democratic solution to the Kurdish problem is only possible with a social opposition and a real democracy."

 

WE ARE EXPERIENCING THE RESULTS OF THIS ISOLATION

 

Emphasizing that the society has suffered the most severe consequences of the isolation in Imrali, Çelik continued as follows: “Prisons were built specifically for isolation. Special Type F and T Closed Prisons were built in Germany, England and Italy were also built in Turkey under the same law. The project aimed to kill people slowly in prisons. The government wanted to do that too in 1996. But then, with the death fast resistance that started in prisons, this was repelled. The operation on prisons in December 19 happened a year after İmralı was built. We are experiencing the most severe consequences of the Imrali isolation. In other words, after the isolation of the vanguards and militants, it came to the isolation of the masses.”

 

PEOPLE ARE NOW UNDER ISOLATION TOO

 

Noting that social isolation has gained continuity with the Imrali isolation, Celik said that government is trying to prevent people from taking to the streets. Underlining that there is a broad social opposition to the fascist ways and methods of the government, Çelik said, “The government isolates the people in order to suppress the social opposition and maintain its power. Because the isolation has spread everywhere and together with the isolation, we are faced with political violence, replacing elected officials with trustees, a coup attempt and even a government that regards the pandemic as a blessing."

 

THE SOLUTION OF THE KURDISH QUESTION

 

Underlining that Turkey's democratization depends on the solution of the Kurdish question, Çelik said that if the Kurdish question is resolved, Turkey's path will be cleared. Çelik said, “Behind this political reality, there is a very long historical and social accumulation and a series of reasons. Kurdish Freedom Movement led by PKK has turned into a peoples' movement that the state can not supress. They tried to use people's sensitivities about homeland, flag and nation. They spread these feelings to the society, and the war that started with the Kurdish problem leveraged nationalism, racism and chauvinism in the west. This is how the reflexes that are common in society today developed.

 

THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM IS ÖCALAN

 

Pointing out that society has an urge to hold them to account,  Çelik said, They are discussing what would happen if Öcalan sat down at the table. At this stage, they have closed the material dimension of this. Öcalan is the first address where the problems, contradictions and conflicts will be resolved. Today not only Öcalan, but also HDP is under isolation. But the isolation is breaking. The bourgeois opposition knows they can not succeed without HDP. The bourgeois opposition, which remain silent to the trustees appointed in the Kurdish provinces, considered themselves too far from there. HDP warned them that the same thing will happen to them one day. Now we are talking about if a trustee will be appointed to İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality."

 

PEOPLES WILL BREAK THE ISOLATION

 

Çelik said: "The isolation spreaded to the society. The only way to break this isolation is the people standing up against it. If a path will be open, it will open witj social movement."

 

 

MA / Esra Solin Dal