Imprisoned PKK leader Ocalan denied Eid visit

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Turkish authorities on Sunday denied a request by the family of the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan for a visit on the occasion of the Islamic Eid al-Adha festival.

The PKK leader’s younger brother, Mehmet Ocalan, said officials cited an extended state of emergency in the country for not allowing the family a visit to a supermax prison in the Imrali Island of the inland Sea of Marmara in northwestern Turkey.

Ocalan, who co-founded the PKK in 1978 and continues to be a central figure for the armed group, is serving a life sentence for “treason” on the island prison since his capture in Kenya by the US-backed Turkish Intelligence services in 1999.

The brother said it was their right to pay a visit and called the Turkish decision “undemocratic,” reported Kurdistan 24’s Kurdish website.

Mehmet Ocalan further stated the family was concerned regarding his brother’s well-being as they have not seen the PKK leader since last year’s Eid celebrations.

No one has been allowed to meet with Ocalan since then.

A delegation of lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) last sat down with him in April 2015.

The HDP delegation relayed messages from the PKK weeks before peace talks between the group and the Turkish state collapsed.

The last time his lawyers were granted a meeting with him was in 2011.

The PKK leader was instrumental during the 2013-2015 ceasefire and peace negotiations between Ankara and the PKK military leadership based in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany