This week is one of the quarterly sessions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Abdullah Öcalan may be locked away on İmralı island, but he is also very much here in Strasbourg.
On Monday, the opposite side of the boulevard from the Council was yellow with Öcalan flags, and the sound of speeches and music came up the broad concrete steps to assail everyone going in and out of the Council Building. Two of the speakers were members of the Assembly who came out at the lunchbreak to show their support.
Thomas Pringle, an independent member of parliament from Ireland brought a message of support from the Irish people and promised to do what he could in the Council of Europe and the Irish parliament for Kurdish freedom and Öcalan’s freedom. He stressed that what Turkey is doing to Öcalan shows their fear of what the Kurds could achieve with freedom.
Member of parliament for Strasbourg, Emmanuel Fernandes of La France Insoumise, described Öcalan’s situation as condemnable and inhumane and contrary to the Council of Europe conventions, which Turkey has signed. And he saluted Kurdish courage and resistance that has inspired the Left. He noted that he would be raising the issue of the freedom of imprisoned MP Selahattin Demirtaş when speaking in a debate in the Parliamentary Assembly that afternoon; he praised the heroic resistance and courage that succeeded in getting the election result accepted in Van; and he spoke about Sehat Gültekin, the Kurdish activist deported from France to Turkey the previous week, an action that he described as a shame for France.
Today, Wednesday, Öcalan’s situation and that of other political prisoners in Turkey was the subject of a press conference in the Council building, sponsored by DEM Party MP, and member of the Parliamentary Assembly, Berdan Öztürk. Öcalan’s lawyer, Faik Özgür Erol, explained the reality and significance of Öcalan’s isolation (we have published his speech as a separate article). Ömer Öcalan spoke both as a DEM Party MP and as Öcalan’s nephew. He observed that the people defending human rights were those at the vigil outside the building, and called for the Council of Europe to fulfil the role it was set up to do. Constantinos Efstathiou, MP from Cyprus and another member of the Parliamentary Assembly and Rapporteur on political prisoners in Europe observed that Turkey is one of the leading culprits for imprisoning political prisoners. He condemned the silence of Europe in front of the isolation in İmralı, and of the huge numbers of people who are tortured in Turkey’s prisons and police stations.
These events follow last week’s conference in the European parliament in Brussels, which was attended by human rights lawyers from many different countries. Speakers stressed the uniquely unbearable isolation being imposed on Abdullah Öcalan, and also looked at the more general “judicialisation of politics”, and the spread of exceptional and illegal treatment of political prisoners, including in places that are thought of as democracies. They noted how every violation of human rights opens the door to further violations, and how İmralı prison, where Öcalan is incarcerated, is used as a model for restrictions in other prisons in Turkey and also beyond.