Jurist: Turkish authorities' practices against Ocalan are not related to any domestic or international law

The Turkish authorities have been pursuing arbitrary policies against the leader Abdullah Ocalan since his capture on February 15, 1999, and imposing strict isolation on him, as they do not allow his lawyers and family to meet with him and check on his condition.

The popular, political and human rights circles consider that the goal of the Turkish authorities is to isolate him from the people as well as to keep him away from the events of society and the countries of the world.

In this regard, the Co-chair of the Lawyers Union Branch for Al-Jazira Canton - Serêkaniyê Branch, Hassen Mesto, indicated in a statement with Hawar news agency that legally and in all the laws of the world, whether national or international laws, the convict person has fixed rights, and said, "Even Turkish law recognizes these matters, and a sentenced prisoner may not be isolated."

Mesto stated, "The convicted person may not be isolated, whether from lawyers or their family, as visits are one of the convict's rights."

Mesto emphasized that, within the framework of their rule, the Turkish authorities consider the leader's case a criminal case according to their concept, and do not consider it a political issue. "As we know, the case of the leader Ocalan is not a person's case, but rather the issue of the Kurdish people who have been persecuted and deprived of their rights for hundreds of years."

Mesto continued, "From the legal point of view, these practices and isolation by themselves do not have any connection with any local or international law, or even Turkish law." He explained that the leader Ocalan expresses the cause of the Kurdish people, and that the ruling issued against him is a judgment against the peoples of the region in general and the Kurds in particular, and their goal is to prevent the thought and philosophy of the leader Ocalan who calls for spreading freedom and the thought of peoples' brotherhood and coexistence among the peoples of the region.

CPT should do its legal duty

Despite the release of the report of the European Committee Against Torture (CPT), which emphasized the practice of non-human rights policies in Imrali prison and documented many violations in its report, the Turkish authorities have tightened isolation more on the leader Ocalan, and took negative steps towards him.

At the end of his speech, Mesto appealed to CPT, which works in the framework of defending human and peoples' rights, to carry out its legal and moral duty, especially in the context of isolation and the international silence towards the practices of the Turkish authorities.

D.H

ANHA