ISTANBUL - Asrın Law Office applied to the ECtHR after the Constitutional Court found it lawful to prevent family visits in Imralı Prison.

 

The aggravated isolation on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan and detainees Ömer Hayri Konar, Veysi Aktaş and Hamili Yıldırım, held in Imralı F Type High Security Closed Prison, continues. Asrın Law Office lawyers and families apply to both the Imralı Prison Directorate and the Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office every week. However, no positive or negative response is given to the applications.

Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held in Imralı for 22 years, was able to meet with his lawyers on dates on May 2-22, June 12-18 and August 7, 2019, after eight years. Abdullah Öcalan was able to make his first phone call on April 27, 2020. Abdullah Öcalan’s second and last phone call with his brother Mehmet Öcalan on March 25 was interrupted.

 

Only three meetings in six years

 

Hamili Yıldırım, Veysi Aktaş and Ömer Hayri Konar, who were taken to Imralı Prison in March 2015, cannot benefit from their rights. Despite the meeting requests made by lawyers 750 times and by families 350 times to date, Hamili Yıldırım two, Ömer Hayri Konar and Veysi Aktaş were able to meet with their families only three times.

 

According to the Constitutional Court, it is lawful

 

The applications made by lawyers against this situation do not yield any results. Lawyers applied to Bursa Office of Judge of Execution and High Criminal Court in December 2020 for the removal of unfair and unlawful disciplinary punishments and for giving them a copy of the file of the disciplinary board decisions given about their clients. Applications for Veysi Aktaş, Hamili Yıldırım and Ömer Hayri Konar were rejected. The lawyers then applied to the Constitutional Court for their clients Ömer Hayri Konar, Veysi Aktaş and Hamili Yıldırım on the grounds that the decisions were unlawful. The Constitutional Court also found the application made for three people ‘’inacceptable’’. The Constitutional Court, arguing that there was no violation, found the rejection of the meeting applications ‘’lawful’’.

 

According to the news in the Mesopotamia Agency (MA), the application made for Abdullah Öcalan is still undecided, while the lawyers applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for their three clients whose applications were rejected. In the applications made on September 22-24, it was emphasized that the right to family visit was protected by the constitution, international and human rights conventions.