Jurists: every prisoner has right to meet lawyer which Turkish state violates

BASIL RASHIED / AL-SHAHBA

This came during an interview with ANHA agency with human rights activists in al-Shahba canton, highlighting the situation of the leader of the Kurdish people Abdullah Ocalan in Imrali island prison in Turkey.

Where the Turkish state has put Abdullah Ocalan in deep isolation for years and allowed neither his lawyers nor his family to visit him. The latest decisions issued by the first court in Bursa are preventing Ocalan's lawyers from visiting him for six months.

In his family's last attempt to visit their son, the Turkish authorities banned them on the pretext of "precautionary measures." Ocalan's lawyer, Bilmaz Ibrahim, said earlier that the Turkish authorities assumed this argument because Ocalan had said in one of his interviews that the learning in the mother tongue is a right.

"The arrest of the leader was a clear violation, but the Turkish state did not stop at that point," said lawyer Nariman Hussein.

"The arrest of a leader of a people in this way is a contravene to the rights, where it should be differentiated between a leader of a people and a war criminal, but if there were justice, the countries that participated in the plot against a leader representing an entire people would be held accountable."

Nariman said that the methods adopted by the Turkish state "Are clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issued in 1947, where every prisoner whatever his/her charge is has the right to be visited by lawyers."

Nariman said that since his arrest, "Ocalan had been stripped of all his rights and left without international guarantees, even self-defense, as we know that self-defense is a" sacred right" in accordance with international conventions.

Chauvinist practices against Ocalan

For his part, lawyer Sobhi al-Ahmad said that the Turkish state is practicing chauvinistic tactics against Ocalan, adding, "the Turkish state is strictly isolating Ocalan, and this expresses a chauvinistic method against a detainee. The Turkish state aims to break the will of the Kurdish people and all those who believe in Ocalan's thought."

"One item of the international conventions assert that all peoples have the right to self-determination, but Turkey also violates this item, it is persecuting the Kurdish people," he said at the end of his speech.

H/S

ANHA