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February 18th, 2018 
Awake Goy 
Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) : Lawyers of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan have again appealed to Turkish authorities for permission to visit him in jail. Öcalan has’t been granted the right to see his lawyers for years already. His lawyers submitted their new request on the 19th anniversary of Ocalan’s arrest. Lawyers have previously expressed gravest concerns about Ocalan’s detention, his security, legal rights, health and human rights.
Abdullah Öcalan (archives)
Öcalan’s lawyers have submitted over 725 requests to visit the jailed PKK leader since July 27, 2011, reported ANF. Abdullah Ocalan’s brother Mohamed visited him at Imrali prison on September 11, 2016. Before that, his family was last able to visit him on October 6, 2014 and a delegation from the leftist HDP party visited him on April 6, 2015. His lawyers have not been permitted to meet with him since 2011.
Turkey’s opposition HDP, a party that is strongly represented in predominantly Kurdish areas of Turkey, was planning to give a statement to protest his imprisonment, but police in Diyarbakir province reportedly prevented them from doing so.
The Democratic Society Centre for Kurds in Germany (NAV-DEM), a Kurdish political group in Germany with ties to the PKK, planned to carry out protests on Wednesday and Thursday in Cologne, but their requests were denied by city authorities, according to Deutsche Welle’s Turkish edition. Even though countries like Germany, Belgium and other key EU members are softening their stance on the PKK, Germany considers the PKK a terrorist organization, although it’s struggle is often recognized as “legitimate”. However, Cologne police said NAV-DEM is an extension of the PKK.
The group accused Germany of “kneeling to Erdogan” and “restraining the political activities of the region’s second biggest refugee group.” NAV-DEM, in a statement on its website, argued the decision to prevent their planned protests was made because Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim is visiting Germany. In a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday, Yildirim said the PKK issue should not impact ties between the two countries.
Events to mark the anniversary of Öcalan’s arrest were held at a refugee camp in Makhmour sheltering Kurds who mainly fled Turkey in the 1990s and in Qamishlo, Rojava, northern Syria. Ocalan, 69, was born in Omerli, Turkey to a poor family. He is affectionately called “Apo,” meaning “uncle.” He co-founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 1978. The party began its armed conflict with the Turkish state in 1984. An estimated 40,000 people have died in the decades of conflict.
Öcalan was running his party from Damascus, but later was warned by the Syrian government to leave the country after Turkey threatened Syria with military action. He was arrested in Nairobi, Kenya and handed over to Turkish special forces on February 15, 1999.
Five years after meetings were prohibited, Ocalan’s lawyers denounced the isolation of the PKK leader as illegal
Female YPJ fighters in Raqqa, Syria, after defeating ISIS there, honoring Ocalan’s leadership and intellectual contributions.
In late 2016, five years after Turkish authorities prohibited meetings between PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and following the failed coup on July 15, Öcalan’s lawyer, Ibrahim Bilmez, reiterated that the total isolation of Öcalan is illegal.
In a 2016 interview with ANF, Ibrahim Bilmez, from the Arsin Law Office, reiterated that lawyers haven’t been allowed to see their client since July 27, 2011. Bilmez also stressed that he is gravely concerned about the situation of the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) after the failed coup on July 15, and the subsequent purge among military personnel, judges, prosecutors, academics, journalists, members of opposition parties, intellectuals and others.
Bilmez noted that millions of people are concerned about Öcalan’s health and general situation and that concerns deepen and social tensions rise when nobody hears from him. Bilmez also pointed out that the communication and visit ban issued by the Bursa Judge of Execution regarding his client and other prisoners was arbitrary and that such a situation hadn’t occurred even during the 12 September 1980 coup. He added that Turkey in its entirety has been turned into an Imrali prison with the declaration of the state of emergency following the failed coup on July 15.
Bilmez also noted that he had problems making inquiries about the situation of Öcalan following the failed coup, stressing that the lawyers were only able to reach the warden in the afternoon, after relentless calls. He added:
The warden said there were no problems in Imralı, Mr. Öcalan was okay, and that if there had been a problem, he wouldn’t have been able to talk to us on the phone. Of course this explanation wasn’t enough to allay concerns, and this concern isn’t just ours in any case. As you know, millions of people follow Mr. Öcalan’s health and general situation and the concern deepens and social tensions rise when they can’t hear from him. Especially after such a coup attempt, people were alarmed and concerned even more when they couldn’t get any information, which is a rightful concern.
Bilmez stressed that the Turkish government appears to legitimize isolation per decree. The lawyer stressed that the lawyers and family of Öcalan, sadly, are not in a position where we can trust the state. He added that the Gülen Movement’s members accused of staging the coup had been using the state’s judiciary apparatus before:
They were the judges, prosecutors, bureaucrats of this state and they constantly lied to us. Therefore, these rightful concerns need to be addressed immediately. First, the family’s and the lawyers’ legal right to meet with Mr. Öcalan must be secured. Even if this doesn’t happen, our client must be able to utilize his right to communication and phone his family or write a note in his own handwriting about his wellbeing. People are genuinely concerned, we receive phone calls constantly, he said.
Bilmez said that they applied to the Judge of Execution one day before the state of emergency was issued. But the Bursa Judge of Execution Office issued a ban on visits and communications for our client Mr. Öcalan and other prisoners with him with lightning speed. Bilmez also stressed that the isolation of Öcalan is arbitrary and noted that:
The articles 114 and 115 of the Penal Code they reference say “visits and communications for the arrestees to ensure the security of ongoing investigations and prosecutions”. But our client and other people in the prison are already convicted, they don’t have ongoing investigations or prosecutions. Thus, the decree issued by the Bursa Judge of Execution Office is very odd. We appealed against the decree at the Bursa 2nd High Criminal Court yesterday, now we’re waiting for their response. If that response is also negative, we will take the matter to the Constitutional Court. We have already filed a claim with the Constitutional Court for an injunction on July 20, 2016 because we can’t meet with our client.
Moreover, the uncertainty about Öcalan is confounded due to the fact that the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) can only share reports with the Turkish government’s approval. The CPT conducted an inquiry three months prior to the failed coup. Bilmez said:
We have been informing the CPT of Mr. Öcalan’s situation for a long time. We send occasional reports, and sometimes we meet. As a result of these meetings, the CPT visited Imralı 3 months ago, but they still haven’t issued their report on that visit. First we need to explain what the CPT is to the public. The CPT isn’t an NGO, it is a body of the Council of Europe. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is, they can visit any prison in Turkey without prior notice or permission. This is how they visited Imralı 6 times before. The disadvantage is, every member state has a representative in the CPT. For example, France has a representative, Russia has a representative – and Turkey has a representative. In this sense, we can say that the CPT is an institution with political reflexes. CPT has an operational procedure. To issue a report on a visit, they notify the Turkish government of the determined situation and give them time to respond. Then they can only publish the report if the government gives permission. In all 5 visits before, the government gave the permission and that was how the reports were able to be published.
Bilmez stressed that the lawyers appealed to the CPT again on July 20 and pleaded for a new inquiry into the situation at Imrali, but to no avail. Bilmez urged that the international community should be more alert about the situation of Abdullah Öcalan, the situation of the Kurds, and about the legal and rights situation in Turkey in general. He added:
Mr. Öcalan being handed over to Turkey, being put on trial, receiving the death penalty first and then the penalty being reduced to aggravated life sentence isn’t separate from the Kurdish question. This is a political trial, thus the solution of this trial is directly connected to the solution of the Kurdish issue. As I said before, the Kurdish people are very conscious of this matter and they are deeply concerned following this coup attempt. Frankly, we want to express that we expect even more consciousness from the public.
Bilmez noted that the unlawful situation in Imrali prison after the failed coup on July 15 is of concern for all Turkish citizens and that it can affect anyone who is perceived as a threat to a current government. With the declaration of the state of emergency, the people arrested for being “parallelist” [members of the alleged “parallel state structure”] haven’t been allowed to meet with their lawyers for 12 days, he said. As this period gets longer, legal circles are stunned and they start asking, “How is it possible that they haven’t been allowed to see their lawyers?”, he added.
Bilmez stressed that this is exactly is what he and his colleagues have been experiencing for five years.. This didn’t even happen in the 12 September 1980 coup period. And the worst part is, they didn’t allow us lawyers to see Mr. Öcalan during the resolution process either, he added. Bilmez stressed that he and his law firm demand that Öcalan be subjected to normal law immediately and be able to see his lawyers. Bilmez stressed that Mr. Öcalan had said countless times during the solution process in meetings with both the state and the [HDP] committee, that if the solution process failed, the coup mechanism would go into motion. He was right, again. This is why the “frozen” solution process needs to start again.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been designated as a terrorist group by NATO. This designation was not as much based on international law as it was based on the fact that the PKK has received tentative support from Moscow and Tehran since the mid-1980s, as part of a strategy that mirror’s NATO’s stay behind (a.k.a. Gladio) structures and the fact that Turkey is a core NATO member. The PKK has also been designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union (EU). France has, however, regularly ignored Turkish calls for the extradition of PKK members. Neither UN Security Council members Russia or China and a cohort of other countries designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.
CH/L – nsnbc 17.02.2018
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2018/02/17/ocalans-lawyers-request-visit-on-anniversary-of-his-arrest/
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