Leader Abdullah Ocalan, whom any information hasn’t been received for more than 22 months about, comments in his pleadings on the torture system in Imrali, saying: "During the Imrali stage, the plot that affected me was so difficult that it would not have left a person with an inch of hope. They would have counted on my steadfastness that determines my will and determination.”
Leader Abdullah Ocalan spoke in the fifth volume entitled "The Kurdish Cause and the Solution of the Democratic Nation - in Defense of the Kurds Caught in the Vaults of Cultural Genocide" of the book "Manifesto of Democratic Civilization" which he collected his pleadings, specifically in the chapter titled "My Life in Imrali Prison", about the conditions of Imrali prison, the crimes he was exposed to, his steadfastness and resistance in prison. Here, we share with you some of his assessments.
I did not touch on my personal life in all of my written pleadings and my dialogues that took place so far, except for my occasional health problems and relations with the prison administration. My experiences in life regarding this absolute unity and constancy, I still remember that one of the village elders, who is considered a wise jurist, had said while observing my movements and actions when I was a child, I would sit in your place or you would have mercury. As it is well known, mercury is a viscous liquid with great movement, and I was thus very mobile. Therefore, if the gods of mythology had thought of punishing me, they would not have thought of a severe punishment as far as shackling me to the rocks of Imrali. Nevertheless, here I am, completing my twelfth year in the solitary room.
Imrali is historically famous for being an island in which judgments issued against high-ranking state officials are applied. Its climate is very humid and very harsh, and is close to destroying the human physically. Adding isolation inside a closed solitary room to that increases its destructive effect on the structure even more. In addition, I was transferred to the island while I was on the threshold of Tur. He's getting old. I've been kept under Special Forces Command oversight for a long time, and I believe the oversight of the Ministry of Justice has been in place for the last two years.
I did not have any means of communication except for single issues of books, newspapers and magazines, and radio with only one station. Of course, my world of communication consisted of visiting relatives for half an hour every few months and lawyers visits weekly, which was often prohibited under the pretext of (bad weather). There is no doubt, that I do not underestimate the effect of this on communication, but it cannot be a sufficient relationship to remain steadfast. Therefore, my mind and will were the ones that would determine the extent of my steadfastness and remaining strong and solid.
This, and I must not go over the matter without mentioning another point, which is that the conspiracy plotted against me in the context of my command was of the kind that does not keep even a small glimmer of hope. Sentencing me to death and keeping psychological warfare on the agenda for a long period of time contributes to this goal, even in the early days, I did not imagine how I would endure here, let alone the passing of the years. Rather, I could not imagine spending only one year here, and I had an idea: How can you put millions of people in a cramped room?
And in my capacity as a national Kurdish leadership, I had already made myself or forced myself to make myself a new composition containing millions within it under the circumstances of my imprisonment. This is how the people saw me as well. While a person was completely unable even to bear his separation from his family and children, how was it possible for you to bear my separation against his will from millions desperate for union and unity, and after me for a long time that may not end with a meeting, they did not give me even the letters of the sons of the people consisting of a few lines, except for some rare letters of the detained comrades, passed under strict censorship, the bulk of which is not given. I have not yet received any message from someone outside the prison, except in some exceptional cases, and I have not been able to send any message outside the prison either. All these things may relatively explain the situation resulting from abstraction and isolation, but there were aspects of my position, as I was the person who urged the Kurds to accomplish many (beginnings) All those mid-starts were necessary steps on the path of free life. I had motivated all of our people to make the first breakthroughs in all social fields, but I was not able to deliver any of them to good hands or leave them in suitable circumstances. Imagine the case of a lover who achieved his first breakthrough for his first love, but his hands remained stuck in the air at the time when the fire of love was His heart would ignite, and the freedoms that I achieved in the social fields would have all remained suspended in the air, as I was melting from the severity of my preoccupation with the fields of social freedom, so that I did not leave behind a remarkable thing called (I), and the period of imprisonment had begun at such a moment on the social level.
In fact, the external circumstances, the conditions of the state and the prison administration, and even if the prison facilities themselves are specific to palaces and captives, all of this does not suffice to explain how to endure the isolation imposed in a way that is intended for me. It is not necessary to search for the basic factors in the surrounding circumstances or in the positions of the state. Rather, what is needed her, is to convince myself of the conditions of isolation, as I should have fortified myself with great and sublime arguments that would enable me to bear isolation and prove my ability to live a great life even within the conditions of isolation.
And when thinking based on that, first of all, about terminological evolutionists, the first was related to the social status of the Kurds, as I was thinking as follows: In order for me to desire a free life for me, the society which I belong, had to be free, or rather the place for individual freedom to be verified without society and its sociology, the freedom of the individual was entirely linked to the level of freedom of society. When I projected this hypothesis on the Kurdish society, my view was that the life of the Kurds is no different from an open, pitch-black prison. I do not list this awareness as a literary expression, but I formulate it as a fact that reflects the lived reality as it is.
And secondly, there was the need to adhere to a concrete moral principle in order to be able to fully understand the term, because you have to educate yourself about the inability to live except in connection with a society without understanding the awareness created by modernity, which is to convince the individual of the possibility of living without any social contact, but this attempt to persuade is a false explanation, since there is no life like this in reality, but it is being persuaded as an innovative hypothetical reality. The denial of this principle is an expression of the deterioration of morals. In other words, truth and morals are intertwined here, and liberal individualism is not possible except with the deterioration of moral society and the severing of its nakedness with the awareness of truth and presenting it in a phased era as the prevailing form of life. It proves its eligibility and credibility just as the establishment of the capitalist system, in whose name it is a spokesperson, is not possible except with the collapse and degradation of the moral society and its lack of awareness of the truth.
The question that revolves in the minds of our people in connection with my life in Imrali is: Where and how will I live in the event of my release from prison? To my life after leaving prison, a better and better answer will be given to such questions. The first rebellions that I expressed against the rule of the family since I was under the age of ten are characterized by important signs in this regard. Since that time, I was a lone rebel. The village, the city and those concerned can find the crisis questions with their answers.
Prisons are not only homes for sharpening and correcting the personality, but they are also places where learning how to perform moral and volitional duties towards society is carried out with an efficient skill. And pay attention to this moral duty and cover the requirements of freedom with regard to self-defense.
What I am aiming at is that all places are characterized by the same advantages in relation to those whose social existence is under the yoke of absolute servitude or who suffer from dispersion and fragmentation, just as useless differentiation processes such as the inside is bad and the outside is good, or the armed is bad and the defenseless is good does not change anything from the content of the original efforts exerted For the sake of existence and freedom, and since human life is only valued when it is free, wherever there is a life devoid of freedom, that place constitutes a dark prison at all times.
If this is the case, and in the event of my release from prison, wherever my place is and the moment I live in, of course, I will persevere until my last breath in waging the continuous struggle with all the necessary words and actions for the sake of the community that I strived to achieve belonging to, and for the sake of the Kurds who are living its most tragic reality and their democratic national transformation that It is their way to solution and liberation, and for the union of nations, which is the way to solution and salvation for the neighboring peoples first and for all the peoples of the Middle East, of which the Kurds are a part, as well as for the sake of the global democratic union of nations, which is the way for solution and salvation for all the peoples of the world of which the peoples of the Middle East are a part It is inseparable from it, and I will persevere in my path depending on the personality of the truth, which has gained an abundance of truth in me, and I am fortified with the necessary moral, aesthetic, philosophical and scientific strength for this, and I will earn life according to that and I will share it with everyone.
A
ANHA
