In June 2024, a hundred public figures wrote an open letter to the Council of Europe's Anti-Torture Committee (CPT). In their urgent appeal, they called for the immediate dispatch of a delegation to the Turkish prison island of Imrali and an independent review, clarification and change of the extreme detention situation of Abdullah Öcalan and the other prisoners on Imrali.

One of the signatories is the lawyer, publicist and civil rights activist Dr. Rolf Gössner. In an interview with ANF, he said that the CPT had responded to the open letter, but that the "response was not meaningful and therefore unsatisfactory."

Addressing German and European policy on Turkey and the Kurds, Gössner stressed that radical change is needed, including an end to the "terrorist stigmatization, criminalization, persecution and exclusion of Kurds, their organizations and media in Europe and Germany." He added: "The Federal Republic and the EU must do everything they can to promote a dialogue process and a peaceful, just and democratic solution to the Kurdish question, instead of hindering it as they have done so far. And this includes: lifting the ban on PKK activity and the executive authorization to prosecute under Section 129b of the Criminal Code (membership in a terrorist organization abroad) as well as removing the PKK from the EU terror list."

Mr. Rolf Gössner, have you received a response from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to your open letter? If so, what are the most important points of the response?

Yes, a response has been received by the Solidarity Network Germany for the campaign "Freedom for Öcalan - a political solution to the Kurdish question", which initiated the open letter. This response assures that the Council of Europe's Anti-Torture Committee (CPT) is following and will continue to monitor the situation of Mr. Öcalan and the other people detained in Imrali prison. The CPT's Committee of Experts has already visited the detention center on the prison island of Imrali in the Sea of ​​Marmara several times, most recently in September 2022. The situation of those detained there continues to be, it says, "an integral part of the Committee's ongoing dialogue with the Turkish authorities", most recently during the most recent visit to Turkey in February 2024.

How do you assess these statements by the CPT?

Unfortunately, this response is not meaningful and therefore is unsatisfactory. It does not mention any concrete steps by the CPT that could bring about a lasting improvement in the detention situation. In addition, since the last CPT visit to Imrali in September 2022, i.e. almost two years ago, nothing has changed for the better in the solitary confinement situation, quite the opposite. And the CPT's most recent visit to Turkey in February 2024 - but no longer to the prison on Imrali - has apparently not changed anything. Unfortunately, this does not speak for the CPT's effective influence on the responsible Turkish authorities and political leaders.

In your open letter, you call on the CPT to immediately visit the island of Imrali and to insist that Turkey fully fulfils its obligations as a member of the Council of Europe.

In fact, it is high time that the CPT strongly denounced the human rights-violating solitary confinement conditions to which Abdullah Öcalan and his fellow prisoners have been subjected for so long on the prison island of Imrali. As a member state of the Council of Europe, Turkey is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, according to which no one may be subjected to torture or inhuman punishment or treatment.

But it is precisely here that there are major deficits and serious violations on the part of the Turkish government and administration - systematic human rights violations that should practically call into question Turkey's membership of the Council of Europe. It has been documented many times that Turkish state authorities impose inhumane solitary confinement on prisoners for months and years. Time and again, as in the Öcalan case, for years, access to lawyers and visits by family members are arbitrarily and illegally denied. In addition, Turkey is undermining and ignoring rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, which it should observe and implement.

In your letter, you remind people of the basic principles of the CPT. What is this about, and how far can the CPT go?

By signing our appeal, we wanted to remind people that it is one of the CPT's duties to protect prisoners in member states of the Council of Europe from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and this particularly includes solitary confinement conditions such as in the Öcalan case. The CPT's Committee of Experts is granted extensive investigative powers when carrying out its visits to prisons: it has unrestricted access to all prisons and the right to move around freely within them. During their inspections, the experts also have the right to speak confidentially with prisoners and other people of their choosing. In urgent cases, the Committee can, in addition to its regular visits to states, also register and carry out ad hoc visits at short notice.

The CPT could therefore send a delegation to Imrali again as soon as possible to question the people concerned directly, to independently investigate their prison conditions, to assess their state of health and to ensure that they have contact with lawyers and families. Unfortunately, however, the CPT's powers do not go much further or far enough to effectively and sustainably remedy conditions that violate human rights: the CPT generally prepares confidential reports on its prison visits and critical findings, sends them to the member states concerned and recommends improvement measures where necessary. There are no specific means of enforcement of these reports.

Despite these rather limited opportunities for influence, I think the question arises whether the CPT and the Council of Europe have so far exerted enough pressure on Turkey to take as effective a stand as possible against torture and other human rights violations in Imrali and other Turkish prisons. In fact, it is long overdue for Turkey to face real consequences for its violations of the law. And this could include targeted sanctions against those responsible for the Turkish solitary confinement system. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has already pushed for sanctions and punitive measures against Turkey in 2021 and 2023, albeit in different contexts, as part of an infringement procedure. In the worst case scenario, Turkey could even be excluded from the Council of Europe, as happened to Russia after its war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022 (which, however, pre-empted this vote by withdrawing). However, when membership of the Council of Europe ends, the state in question automatically leaves the European Convention on Human Rights, so that it is no longer bound by it.

My last question relates to the criminalization policy and practice in Germany. The latest report by Amnesty International shows that widespread repressive laws across the continent, unnecessary or excessive use of state violence, arbitrary arrests and persecutions, unjustified or discriminatory restrictions on fundamental rights and the increasing use of surveillance technologies have led to a systematic regression in the right to protest in Europe. Since 1993, we have seen disproportionate police operations in Germany against peaceful demonstrations by Kurds due to the PKK ban...

Well, with regard to the German criminalization policy and practice against Kurds, the following can be stated: In fact, the Federal Republic has allowed itself to be fairly integrated into Turkey's "anti-terror" strategy and repression policy. In particular, the ban on the Kurdish group PKK in 1993, which has been expanded in recent years, and the inclusion of the PKK on the EU terror list are instruments that are no longer appropriate for this time. They make a peaceful and just solution to the Kurdish question more difficult, even torpedo it.

The ban on activities against the Kurdish Workers' Party PKK in Germany has certainly caused a lot of harm in this country. Despite the change that the once violence-oriented cadre party PKK has long since made in Europe towards a peaceful and democratic solution to the conflict, the ban remains in place here to this day. This rigid ban policy has discriminated against and criminalized tens of thousands of politically active Kurds, placed them under general suspicion, branded them as potential violent criminals and dangerous "terrorists", and declared them to be domestic political enemies and security risks and excluded them.

The ban on PKK activity severely restricts basic fundamental rights: freedom of association and assembly, freedom of opinion and freedom of the press, and thus freedom of political activity. Demonstration bans and raids, searches of private homes, clubs, printing shops, editorial offices and publishers, confiscations and detentions were and are the order of the day, as are intelligence investigations and infiltration by state and "constitutional protection agencies".

Finally, on the basis of the PKK ban, fines and prison sentences are imposed, naturalizations are refused, citizenships are revoked, residence permits are not renewed, asylum recognition is revoked, and deportations are ordered.

What do you think would have to happen to change this?

In principle, there needs to be a radical change in German and European policy on Turkey and the Kurds. And that includes finally ending the stigmatization, criminalization, persecution and exclusion of Kurds, their organizations and the media in Europe and Germany as terrorists. In addition, the crimes against international law committed by NATO and Council of Europe member Turkey, the human rights violations in Turkey and the unresolved Kurdish question must be placed immediately and emphatically on the agenda of the Council of Europe and the EU as central problems and challenges. Because the Kurdish question, and indeed the minority question in general, is less of a terror problem than ever before, but rather a political and human rights challenge for Turkey with far-reaching effects on Europe and the Federal Republic.

The Federal Republic and the EU must therefore do everything they can to promote a dialogue process and a peaceful, just and democratic solution to the Kurdish question, instead of hindering it as before. And this includes: the lifting of the ban on PKK activity and the executive power to prosecute under Section 129b of the Criminal Code (membership in a terrorist organization abroad) as well as the removal of the PKK from the EU terror list. In addition, this also includes an early end to Abdullah Öcalan's 25-year imprisonment under inhumane conditions. As the most important and legitimate Kurdish representative, he must be involved in a political solution to the Kurdish question, as the Austrian Nobel Prize winner for literature Elfriede Jelinek recently demanded.

Who is Dr. Rolf Gössner

Dr. Rolf Gössner is a lawyer, publicist and member of the board of trustees of the International League for Human Rights (Berlin) and co-editor of the annual "Basic Rights Report. On the situation of civil and human rights in Germany" (Fischer-TB). As a lawyer (1980-2021), international trial observer, participant in human rights delegations (including to Turkey) and speaker, he has been dealing with the Kurdish question, the human rights situation in Turkey and a disastrous German-Turkish "security cooperation" since the 1990s. He is the author and editor of numerous books on the subject of democracy, internal security and civil rights. Gössner has received several awards, most recently the Hans Litten Prize from the Association of Democratic Jurists (VDJ).