JINHA

ISTANBUL – Since the 1999 international plot to capture PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader has led a life of isolation in the "Turkish Guantanamo" on İmralı Island.

İmralı prisoners speak for the first time

The high-security island prison in the Marmara Sea, long a place where political leaders have been imprisoned, is a place shrouded in mystery for the Turkish and Kurdish public. Recently, a prisoner exchange rotated several prisoners off the island.

Political prisoners CumaliKarsu, BayramKaymaz, HakkıAlphan, HaspiAydemir and ŞehmuzPoyraz, recently transferred to Tekirdağ F-Type prisoner after six years on İmralı, shared their experiences of the isolation politics on the island with their lawyers.

Lawyer Ebru Günay spoke with the news agency DIHA about the prisoners' stories.

'The only thing we ever saw of the island was the sky'

When the PKK leader was first brought to the island, prison administrators immediately launched a project to turn the island into an extremely high security isolation center, based on Turkey's notorious F-Type model of prison. For 10 years, Öcalan was imprisoned in total isolation. In 2009, the state deigned to transfer the five prisoners to the island. 15 days after they arrived, they saw the PKK leader for the first time.

Öcalan and the five other prisoners stayed in 12-square-meter cells on a single corridor. With the furniture and toilet in the room taken into account, each prisoner had around 4 square meters of living space. Each prisoner received two hours outside the cell every day for recreation in the morning and afternoon.

During the recreation hours in the concrete prison yard, the prisoners never saw anything of the island but the sky and the wild birds passing overhead. The prisoners, kept under 24-hour surveillance, also say none of them ever saw neighboring prisoners.

Every minute counted in intense İmralı discussions

Still, they knew their presence on the island was part of a historic peace process. They passed the days reading, writing and following the news. The PKK leader, they said, kept an orderly schedule, waking up at 6 a.m. at the latest to start their day.The prisoners took full advantage of the three hours allowed them for conversation with one another around the round table in Öcalan's cell.

They spent their three hours around the round table holding intensive debates about new developments in the country, as well as theoretical conversations. The prisoners followed national and international news and shared summaries of developments with the jailed leader.

The prisoners recalled one day, sitting around the round table, when they learned of the killing of the three Kurdish women in Paris, when CumaliKarsu says he saw the most emotion he had ever seen out of the jailed leader. One of the women killed was a co-founder of the PKK, SakineCansız. Öcalan called for them all to stand up and hold a moment of silent respect for the three women.

At the same time, Öcalan was frequently working on his research books, studying in the library he had assembled on the island through books he requested through his family and lawyers. The library contained books and journals on women's issues, economy, ecology, history, literature and geography. As Öcalan's eyesight started to fail, the prisoners began summarizing and analyzing the books with him.

Daily life in an isolation regime

Newspapers come to the island once a week. Öcalan and the prisoners followed all national papers in the country closely—even the ÖzgürGündem newspaper, frequently banned by the Turkish state in the past, although that came only once every 20 days.

Three hours per week, the prisoners used their sports time to play basketball and volleyball. Even in the breaks between matches, said the prisoners, they would take advantage of their time to discuss political developments.

The prisoners noted that Öcalan gave great importance to the use of time. If he noticed that he had forgotten his watch, he would ask another prisoner to place theirs on the table. He was also inseparable from his water bottle.

There was only one infirmary on the island, said Ebru, and the prisoners had no option to be transferred elsewhere for medical treatment. The legal team has been working to allow an independent medical delegation to visit the island since 1999, but the Turkish state has consistently refused the request. She noted that there continues to be a serious absence of medical services and regular medical checkups on the island.

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