PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was captured in Kenya by Turkey’s secret service in 1999, has been jailed in a high-security prison on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999, where he has been unable to see his lawyers and family members for several years.
The PKK, which has been waging a bloody campaign in Turkey’s southeast since 1984, is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.
HEDEP lawmakers issued a statement to the press in front of parliament on Thursday in which they complained about the restrictions Ocalan has been subjected to for several years.
The party’s co-spokesperson and İstanbul lawmaker Cengiz Cicek said the party’s lawmakers would submit a petition to the Justice Ministry later on Thursday seeking its permission to meet with Ocalan. He said the HEDEP MPs want to meet with Ocalan to discuss a democratic solution for the settlement of Turkey’s longstanding Kurdish issue, adding that they think Ocalan will play “a critical, historical” role in the issue.
The Kurdish issue, a term prevalent in Turkey’s public discourse, refers to the demand for equal rights by the country’s Kurdish population and their struggle for recognition.
Turkey has been accused of denying its Kurdish citizens, which make up approximately 20 percent of its population, their political and cultural rights and pursuing policies aimed at their assimilation since the foundation of modern Turkey.
Cicek said Ocalan had been able to see his lawyers only five times since 2011 and his family members five times since 2014. He said a brief phone call he was allowed to have with his brother, Mehmet Ocalan, in March 2021 was cut off by the authorities and lasted only for two and a half or three minutes.
At the time Mehmet Ocalan said his brother told him the government should allow him to visit with his lawyers and family in person in line with his rights.
The phone call took place at a time when there were rumors about Ocalan’s deteriorating health in prison.
HEDEP deputy group chairman Saruhan Oruç said neither his family nor his lawyers has been able to hear from Ocalan for 31 months, a situation he described as “inhumane” and contrary to domestic and international law.
He said two other inmates on İmralı Island have been subjected to the same restrictions as Ocalan, claiming there is no example of “absolute isolation” of inmates anywhere else in the world.
Three other inmates, who were also convicted on terrorism charges related to the PKK and had been given aggravated life sentences, were transferred to the island in March 2015, Gercek News reported.
Ocalan has been unable to meet with his lawyers since 2019, and their attempts to secure permission from Turkish authorities to visit him have been rejected.
The Turkish government held direct talks with Ocalan and the PKK as part of a peace process initiated in 2009, in a bid to end the country’s Kurdish conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives. The talks collapsed in 2015.