İbrahim Bilmez, one of the lawyers for Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, said at the symposium titled “Equality and the right to hope” organized by the Prisoners Solidarity Initiative (TDI) and the Human Rights Association ( İHD) Istanbul Branch, that “Turkey has lost its credibility.”
Gülseren Yoleri, President of the Istanbul branch of İHD, reminded the participants of the 2022 report they produced on the violations they detected in prisons in the Marmara region.
Yoleri stressed that violations of prisoners’ rights are on the rise, and stressed that there are many violations, especially of the right to life in prisons.
Drawing attention to rapes in the context of torture and ill-treatment in particular, Yoleri added that at least 3,000 rapes were experienced during 2022.
Yoleri also mentioned the violations in the field of communication and said that the detainees are isolated from life.
The lawyers Gülizar Tuncer, Gül Altay and Ibrahim Bilmez attended the first session moderated by the lawyer Jiyan Tosun.
Ibrahim Bilmez, a lawyer from the Asrın law firm, in his presentation entitled “Imralı Island Prison Practices Contrary to the Principle of Equality”, drew attention to the fact that Imralı is not governed by the Turkish legal system, but by a special system.
Highlighting that the Kurdish people accept Abdullah Öcalan as their leader, Bilmez said that he is an important player in the context of the Kurdish issue.
Bilmez stated that the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) also assesses Imrali as a system of torture, adding: “Our clients are constantly subjected to disciplinary punishments to prevent visits. We are not informed of these punishments We found out later. These disciplinary punishments are applied to prevent visits from relatives and lawyers.” The CPT said that the reasons for these disciplinary sanctions were not convincing. Türkiye has lost its credibility. We haven’t heard from our clients for two years. Neither the families nor the lawyers have received visits. No fax, no letter to or from jail.”
