The Lawyers Association for Freedom (ÖHD) Diyarbakır Branch drew attention to the aggravated isolation on PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan by a press conference in their association building. The press statement was attended by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) parliementaries Remziye Tosun, Musa Farisoğulları, Öcalan's custodian Mazlum Dinç, HDP Diyarbakır provincial administration and Youth Assembly, 78's Association, Democratic Islam Congress and ÖHD members.

 

‘THE HEAVIEST ISOLATION IS ON IMRALI ISLAND’

 

ÖHD Headquarters Manager Berdan Acun stated that they witness the violation of the basic rights that are innate after the 71 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations which Turkey is also a part. 

Being the most important of these violations, Acun lists isolation, the violation of right to live, torture, maltreatment, woman massacres, child abuse, exploitation of belief  and impunity as he records the heaviest isolation in prisons is now on Imrali Island. Acun addresses that territorial, see and air zones miles away from the Island have been declared as prohibited zones.

 

‘THE TARGET IS TO FORCE OBEDIENCE AND TO SINGULARIZE

 

Underlying the connection between the Imrali and the system and that this is not only in order to place Öcalan in a “safe place”, Acun told that: “This aims to separate, differentiate, marginalize, singularize, heavy punishment, to force obedience. That is exactly why the system of isolation is not only a regime of punishment, but a technique of a methodology. This technique does not comply with the standards of democracy and law. Isolation is not only applied to the inmate, but also to the families and to the rest of the society outside of the walls. As a psychological pressure applied to the inmate inside, the mases outside are also tried to be taken under impressions together with the manipulation of inmates. 

 

‘GUANTANAMO AND IMRALI IS THE SAME’

 

Acun reminds the decision of the Appeal Court of Britain for the case opened by Ferroz Abbasi, a Britain citizen who was imprisoned in Guantanamo. According to this decision, the court concluded that a person was imprisoned arbitrarily “in a dark hole of legal kind”. Acun continued his statement that: “After this decision, Guantanamo was frequently called as “a dark hole of legal kind”. Actually Guantanamo and Imrali are the two forms of the same dark hole. This is only a tacit regime of law.”

 

‘THIS APPLICATION AGAINST THE LAW SHALL BE ENDED’

 

Mentioning the related regulations in the The Constitution (of Turksih Republic)  and  in the Criminal Court Law (CMK), Acun ended his  statement as follows: “The laws assures the communication of  everybody kept in prisons with their families, lawyers and the outer world. Mr. Abdullah Öcalan who was imprisoned for years in Imrali Prison, have not been able to use these rights. To make these rights available is not arbitrary, but obligatory. Law organizes the social order not according to the political power, parties or individuals. Therefore, everybody is obliged to comply by the law. We invite the public to be sensitive to end this application against the law.”