The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) Co-Chairs Tuncer Bakırhan and Tülay Hatimoğulları applied to the Ministry of Justice for a face-to-face meeting with Kurdish People’s Leader, Abdullah Öcalan, who has been incarcerated
The application filed by Bakırhan said, “Together with our co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları Oruç, we would like to meet Abdullah Öcalan, who is in İmralı F Type High Security Closed Penal Institution, in an open meeting. I request the necessary authorisation.”
Abdullah Öcalan, Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım and Veysi Aktaş are kept under severe isolation conditions in Imralı F Type High Security Prison. Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan has been in solitary confinement since 1999, when he was abducted as a result of an international conspiracy.
The right of Abdullah Öcalan and fellow prisoners in Imralı to meet with their families is being denied by the authorities, citing “disciplinary penalties”. The reasons and file numbers of these disciplinary penalties are not shared with their lawyers despite all applications and objections.
From 27 July 2011 to date, only 5 lawyer visits were allowed between May and August 2019. The last meeting of lawyers with the Kurdish leader took place on 7 August 2019. During the last lawyer meeting 5 years ago. Öcalan stated that he could end the war completely within a week in the face of the possibility of conflict in Serekanîye and Gire Spî, saying that, otherwise, deep social wounds would be opened and the economy would not be able to bear this situation. However, his call for a solution and dialogue was left unanswered. After the meeting with Abdullah Öcalan 5 years ago, the ban on lawyer visits started to be implemented.
The last 6-month ban on lawyer visits to Öcalan and fellow prisoners in İmralı was issued by Bursa Execution Judgeship on 6 November. With this ban, the Kurdish leader has been banned from seeing his lawyer for 6 months at least 14 times in the last 8 years.
Öcalan’s last face-to-face meeting with his family took place on 3 March 2020 and his last telephone conversation on 25 March 2021.
After four years, the Kurdish leader met face to face with his nephew Ömer Öcalan on 23 October 2024. During the meeting, he stated that: “Isolation continues. If conditions are right, I have the theoretical and practical power to move this process from a ground of conflict and violence to a legal and political ground.”
The meeting took place amid discussions on possible talks with Öcalan. MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) Leader Devlet Bahçeli shook hands with the DEM Party group at the opening of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) on 1 October, starting discussions about a possible resolution process with the Kurds. In his speech at the party’s group meeting in mid-October, Bahçeli further called on Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı Prison to “unilaterally declare the end of terrorism and the liquidation of his organization”.
