Every day the people who work in the office of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) see the vigil for Öcalan on the path outside. And many times a year the road becomes full of noisy demonstrators with yellow flags bearing Öcalan’s image. Often the Committee is visited by Kurdish politicians and lawyers to put Öcalan’s case – as last week when Faik Özgür Erol of Asrin Law Office visited Strasbourg. All of this together ensures that the CPT cannot be unaware of the importance of Ôcalan’s case – for the Kurds, for peace in the region, and for the wider world.

But still, the CPT says nothing about their last visit to İmralı island prison, over a year and a half ago, and they have not taken the opportunity to visit the prison again, even though there has been no other contact with Öcalan for over three years now. And so, the Kurdish Freedom Movement is ensuring that the CPT receives further reminders of Öcalan’s significance, and of their duty to do what they were created to do and prevent his torture – torture by denial of hope through the denial of the possibility of parole, and torture by isolation and denial of communication with his family and lawyers and anyone outside the prison.

A week ago, the Internationalist Solidarity Network behind the ‘Freedom for Öcalan: A Political Solution to the Kurdish Question’ Campaign delivered a letter to the president of the CPT asking them to send a delegation to İmralı immediately, and to compel Turkey to allow Öcalan to receive visits from his lawyers and family.

And, beginning last Friday, the Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe (TJK-E) has started a campaign to send the CPT daily reminders. In their campaign announcement they state, ‘Through the letters to be sent from different cities every day, we will remind the CPT of its duties and responsibilities with our demands for the restoration of the legal rights of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, the lifting of absolute isolation, and the paving of the way for his freedom by ending 25 years of isolation policies, and we will ensure that it takes a stand in favour of human rights.’

In neglecting the torture of Öcalan, the CPT is neglecting the torture of the Kurdish people, and they won’t let the European institutions forget that.