This is a translation of the speech given by Faik Özgür Erol at the press conference on Political Prisoners in Turkey held at the Council of Europe on Wednesday 17 April 2024
There is a prison in Turkey. Since March 2020, no one from outside has been allowed to enter. It is an island prison in the middle of a sea – Marmara – 30 kilometres from the land. It is a prison similar to Robben Island in some ways, but the conditions of isolation are much more severe. We are talking about İmralı prison.
There are four political prisoners held in İmralı. One of them is Mr Abdullah Öcalan. The others are Mr Veysi Aktaş, Mr Hamili Yildirim and Mr Ömer Hayrı Konar.
İmralı’s communication with the outside world has always been problematic, but for many years, this problematic situation has turned into a state of total incommunicado. I have been Mr Öcalan’s lawyer for seventeen years. We have applications and cases at the European Court of Human Rights and dozens of cases at the Constitutional Court in Turkey on behalf of Mr Öcalan. But, despite this, we have not been allowed to meet with him since 2011.
This situation has been going on for about thirteen years. In 2019, after the hunger strike protests by political prisoners, five lawyer meetings were allowed in İmralı. However, this did not continue, and meetings were banned again the same year. This means that İmralı continues to be a prison where lawyers have not been allowed for thirteen years.
Families are also not allowed to meet the prisoners in İmralı. The last time their families were able to go to İmralı was in March 2020. For four years, they have not been allowed to meet with any family member. In April 2021, they were able to make a short phone call with their families, and this was the last contact with İmralı. Since April 2021, they have been kept in a state of total isolation with no communication.
As lawyers for Öcalan and the other prisoners in İmralı, we know well that this absolute isolation has no legal basis. We are well aware that the isolation is based on a political and administrative decision. We know that the isolation of Öcalan is an attempt to prevent a solution to the Kurdish question through peaceful and democratic dialogue.
The starting point for Turkey’s current practice of not recognising and not implementing the judgments of the European court of Human Rights is İmralı. First, in 2014, the European Court categorised the decision to keep Öcalan in prison until his death as an inhumane treatment, and called for the establishment of a conditional release mechanism. Since 2014, Turkey has not implemented this judgement and has refused to implement it for anyone sentenced to imprisonment until death.
We must recognise and reject this fact: Turkey, and the Council of Europe of which it is a member, has not allowed any family member or lawyer to enter a prison within its borders – İmralı prison – for many years. No news can be received. In this situation, İmralı Prison is, in real terms, a legal black hole. The attitude of the human rights supervisory and judicial bodies of the Council of Europe, which ignore the existence of a legal black hole, paves the way, or encourages, the spread of similar places and practices in Turkey.
In 2011, we turned the ban on lawyers in İmralı into a case at the European Court of Human Rights. Today, we have reached 2024, and still the European Court has not issued any judgement in this case. How can we explain thirteen years of protracted delay in this application? If you turn a blind eye to the existence of a legal black hole for such a long period of time, for political or diplomatic reasons, you will also witness it multiplying and spreading itself. And this will be the responsibility of Council of Europe.
Therefore, this unprecedented practice, the İmralı ill-treatment regime, must be rejected before it is too late, and effective legal controls and decisions must be developed.
(For a legal time line see here.)