International Initiative
Freedom for Ocalan – Peace in Kurdistan
P.O. Box 100511, D-50445 Koeln
E-Mail: info@freedom-for-ocalan.com
Url: www.freedom-for-ocalan.com

Cologne, 5 March 2003

INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE BRIEFINGS:
Abdullah Ocalan's Solitary Confinement Continues!

Today again Mr. Ocalan’s lawyers were denied to see their client under the pretext of adverse weather. Thus the Kurdish leader’s solitary confinement begins its fifteenth week. An end of this illegal practice seems still far away. In spite of repeated requests to put an end to this isolation by the Council of Europe Turkey does not seem ready to come around.

Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights has announced that its decision in the Ocalan case will be given on March 12, 2003 after it had been postponed several times. Mr. Ocalan’s lawyers said they would raise the arbitrary practice of the Turkish authorities before the European Court. A well-founded complaint was being prepared.

A few weeks ago the Presidential Council of the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress declared defence war, a decision which was also motivated by the inhuman treatment of their president.

Worldwide Kurdish protests had prompted the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) of the Council of Europe to visit Mr. Ocalan two weeks ago. An official communiqué by the CPT is still to come.