On the 15th of September, lawyers from Asrın Law Office, Cengiz Yürekli, Raziye Öztürk, and Ibrahim Bilmez, visited Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Ocalan on Imrali Island Prison. Their statement is as follows:
On 15 September 2025, we carried out a lawyer visit with Mr Öcalan, who is held in İmralı Prison, and our other clients after 6 years. On our part, comprehensive briefings were made regarding their legal situation and the applications continuing in national and international judicial mechanisms. On this occasion, after a very long interval, we had the opportunity to learn their views and suggestions. We would also like to state that we found Mr Öcalan quite strong and determined. That after 2019 a lawyer visit to İmralı has taken place is important and quite meaningful. He himself, within this framework, attributed meaning to the meeting and made it a subject of evaluation. He included in his evaluations that the construction of democratic law is a requirement of the rule-of-law state and one of the fundamental aims of the process.
He stated that, with regard to the stage reached by the peace and democratic society process, it has come to the phase of legal solution. Within the century-long process, Kurds have been kept outside law as a fact, and what they have tried to overcome is precisely this unlawfulness, he expressed. He stated that he is insistent on common life within the framework of the democratic nation and that he possesses the project of a democratic republic. Within this framework he also pointed out that the Kurdish question has many political, social, economic, cultural dimensions, and that at this stage it requires legal solutions covering interim-period laws. He further expressed the wish and hope to evaluate the timing of this lawyer visit, which can be defined as a transitional period, as a sign for opening the door of law.
That an approach commensurate with Mr Öcalan’s role and position as interlocutor be displayed is the primary responsibility of everyone who believes in the peace and democratic society process. On this occasion, we would like to state that the ‘right to hope’, which is on the agenda of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, is a structural problem of Turkey’s law, and that positive steps in this regard would be a primordial step in the construction of democratic law. Mr Öcalan asked us to convey his deepest greetings to all who, above all the political prisoners in prisons, ask about him, believe in the peace and democratic society process they have been carrying out, and put effort and labour into this matter.”