Abdullah Öcalan

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Image:Abdullah öcalan.jpg

Abdullah Öcalan (b. 1948) also known as Serok Apo among his supporters, is the leader of the armed militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Contents

Biography

Image:Cypruspassportofocalan.jpg

Abdullah Öcalan was born in Ömerli, a village in the Halfeti-District, Province of Urfa, in the southeast of Turkey (Kurdistan), in 1948. After leaving his village after secondary school he studied Political Sciences at the University of Ankara. He successfully completed his studies and entered the civil service in Diyarbakir.

Influenced by the situation of the Kurdish people who were being denied the right to live according to their own cultural identity by the Turkish state (the Kurdish language was banned, Kurdish names were forbidden), Abdullah Öcalan became an active member of the Democratic Cultural Associations of the East, an association promoting the rights of the Kurdish people. In 1978, two years before the military coup in 1980, the Kurdistan Workers Party was founded with Abdullah Öcalan as its leader. He currently retains this post.

In 1984 the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) started their attacks against government forces in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey in order to create an independent Kurdish state. Approximately 30,000 people have died as a result of conflict between the Turkish state and the KADEK/PKK. The PKK has on several occasions declared unilateral ceasefires, all disregarded by the Turkish state. The Turkish state has argued that they only served to support political tactics.

Capture and Trial

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Until 1998 Syria was harboring the leader of PKK. As the situation got worse in Turkey, the Turkish government openly threatened Syria over its support for the PKK. As a result of this, the Syrian government forced Öcalan to move out of the country instead of handing him to the Turkish authorities.

Öcalan went to Russia first and from there he moved to various countries, including Italy and Greece. In 1998 while in Italy the Turkish government requested the extradition of Öcalan. He was at that time counselled by the high-profile German attorney, Britta Böhler. The Netherlands based attorney argued that he fought a legitimate struggle against the oppression of his people. He was eventually captured in Kenya on February 15, 1999 in a joint operation between the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT), and the Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks Agency (Mossad). He was then flown back to Turkey for trial.

Öcalan has been held under solitary confinement on the Imrali Island in the Turkish Sea of Marmara since his capture. Though initially sentenced to death, this sentence was commuted to life-long aggravated imprisonment when the death penalty was conditionally abolished in Turkey in August 2002.

Current Situation

Image:Ocalan right after capture.jpg

Since his arrest, Öcalan had been campaigning for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict inside the borders of Turkey, and in this document he asks for a border free confederation between the Kurdish pieces of Turkey (called North Kurdistan by Kurdish nationalists), Syria (West Kurdistan), Iraq (South Kurdistan) and Iran (East Kurdistan). In this zone, three bodies of law would be implemented: EU law, Turkish/Syrian/Iraqi/Iranian law and Kurdish law. Meanwhile, the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, has recently released the Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan [1].

After his capture, he declared a "peace offensive", and the 15-year rebellion ceased, although there had been several isolated incidents, often by groups posing as the PKK.

Imprisonment

  • The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the 1999 trial of Öcalan was flawed and violated his human rights.
  • On March 12 2003, the European Court of Human Rights issued a non-binding ruling that he did not receive a fair trial and his human rights were violated by the delay in bringing his case to court. Upon appeal, the Court's higher chamber confirmed the judgment that the trial was unfair on May 12 2005.
  • Abdullah Öcalan is imprisoned on the Island of Imrali, in the Sea of Marmara. He is the only prisoner on the fortress.
  • Abdullah Öcalan has officially the right to meet his lawyers every week at Wednesday. He is also able to read newspapers and watch television in prison.
  • The court has further ruled that Öcalan should be retried, and this has been agreed to by the Turkish government.

External links

Websites that support Abdullah Öcalan

Media

Websites with criticism of Abdullah Öcalan

Governmental:

Non-Governmental:

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