Danish newspaper publishes advertisement for Öcalan’s freedom

Information, a daily newspaper in Denmark, published an advertisement describing the isolation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan to mark December 10, Human Rights Day. The newspaper emphasized that Öcalan should be free as soon as possible.

‘INHUMAN CONDITIONS’

“Today is December 10, International Human Rights Day, which offers a good opportunity to demand freedom for Abdullah Öcalan!

The Kurdish leader has been kept in a solitary confinement cell on the island of Imrali in the Sea of ​​Marmara, south of Istanbul, since February 15, 1999.

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) confirmed Öcalan’s inhumane detention conditions in its August 2020 report on the closed F-Type High Security Prison on the island of Imrali. He has been staying there since 1999. Contact with the outside world (including correspondence) is completely prohibited for all inmates in the prison.

The 2020 CPT report said that ‘such a situation is unacceptable and clearly contrary to various relevant international human rights conventions and standards. The CPT also found that Turkey’s law on the execution of sentences and security measures was ‘fundamentally flawed’ and concluded that ‘it should be revised not only in the Imrali prison, but in all Turkish prisons’. Lawyers have been prevented from meeting Abdullah Öcalan since August 7, 2019, and since 1999, Öcalan has only had one real phone call with a family member specifically on April 27, 2020. This is a clear violation of fundamental human rights and a violation of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules).

INTERNATIONAL DECISIONS

In January 2019, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted resolution no. 2260 calling on the Turkish authorities to ‘fully respect the rights of opposition politicians in a democracy, including freedom of expression, association and assembly’.

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In October 2020, the PACE strongly condemned that the situation in Turkey had not improved, and that political opposition and public debate had been severely suppressed in recent months.

The resolution also reiterated the call to the Turkish authorities to allow the publication of the 2016 CPT report without further delay and to implement all remaining CPT recommendations, including those concerning the situation of Öcalan and other detainees.

The advertisement also gave links to the website of the Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan Initiative and to Öcalan’s books.

INFORMATION NEWSPAPER

Information emerged out of the news service of the press of the resistance forces against the German occupation and was founded by Børge Outze on 5 May 1945 in a building of a former Nazi newspaper.

Published with the support of the Information Employees Association and the Information Friends Association which have more than 450 members, the newspaper has a huge readership.