​​​​​​​Arab- Armenian experts: Turkey continues to violate international laws

Leader Abdullah Ocalan, arrested on 15 February 1999 through an international conspiracy involving international forces, who handed over to Turkey, which detained him on the isolated island of Imrali and which lacks the lowest conditions of arrest and detention for the most horrific pressures, first and foremost imposing isolation against him and preventing his lawyer and his relatives from meeting with him.

On August 7^th, Al- Asr Human Rights Office for the Defence of leader Ocalan issued a statement to public opinion. Through it, his client has not been able to benefit from his specific rights in domestic and international law for three years. He stated that all requests for a meeting made after the lawyers' meetings with the leader on July 27, 2011 and May 2, 2019 had been unlawfully rejected.

Violation of international law

Member of the Arab Initiative for the Freedom of Ocalan, Egyptian writer and political analyst, Ilhami al-Miligi, spoke: "The announcement by the Turkish authorities that leader Abdullah Ocalan was exempt from the “Right of Hope” constitutes a flagrant violation of Turkish laws, international humanitarian law and international human rights treaties."

During a special talk to ANHA’s agency, al- Miligi viewed the shameful silence of international rights organizations towards this flagrant breach of international treaties as a blow to their credibility and as double standards, subject to political bargains and in the interests of Western States.

"Those international rights organizations that show off of its defending human rights, regardless of their gender, type, colour, race or religion, stand deaf about what is exposed to the activist intellectual Abdullah Ocalan with inhumane or moral arrest, who was abducted by the Turkish security services in broad daylight with the support of a number of Western security agencies."

"The arrest of leader Abdullah Ocalan revealed the hypocrisy of the West, which takes into account its interests with the Turkish regime at the expense of human and moral values that require respect for human rights, especially those who are symbolic and the status of leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is leading an extended struggle for the legitimate rights of his people."

European Sanctions

In her turn, the member of the Syrian Initiative for the Freedom of Ocalan, a human rights activist, Amna Khader, emphasized that according to European human rights laws leader Ocalan has the Right of Hope, pointing out that the Committee of Ministers of Europe has given Turkey a deadline expiring this month to amend its law denying Ocalan this right.

"Turkey is trying to deprive the leader of the right to hope legally by imposing continuous disciplinary sanctions even if his condition is assessed, they say he is not bound and he is subject to many penalties and his status is not eligible for release."

It noted that "in the event that the Turkish state does not abide by this law, it is possible for Europe to take some sanctions against Turkey.”

The rights activist accused Turkey of violating international human rights laws and treaties in its dealings with leader Abdullah Ocalan as well as his exclusion from even Turkish laws.

The world's silence on Turkey's massacres and denials against the Kurdish people had encouraged Erdogan's regime to continue the series of violations against Ocalan and his other comrades.

Trying to put pressure

In the view of Armenian journalist specializing in Turkish affairs, Sarkis Kasarjian, the subject of Ocalan remains far from the judicial and legal path and directly linked to the political path.

"The current authority in Turkey was directly involved in peace talks with the Kurdish movement between 2013-2015", ANHA’s agency said, noting that "The Erdogan government tried to make the most of Ocalan when it allowed leaders from the People's Democratic Party and beyond to visit the Kurdish leader in prison and convey peace messages from him to the Kurdish people in Turkey to be read publicly on Newroz occasions in front of rallies counting hundreds of thousands."

Kasarjian went on: "Today as the election approaches and Turkey has been in the election atmosphere for a while, there seems to be a new attempt to exploit the Ocalan prison either by extracting positions from it or by extracting positions from the Kurds by exerting pressure on it, which the coming days will show."

T/ Satt.

 ANHA