Deniz Gezmis
13th September 2003, 20:55
ISTANBUL, Sept 13 (AFP) - Jailed rebel Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan may soon be transferred from his island prison, where he is the sole detainee, to a mainland high security establishment, a Turkish newspaper reported Saturday.
Earlier this year he claimed that conditions on the island of Imrali, in the sea of Marmara, were causing him serious health problems and warned of the consequences if "something happened" to him.
According to the newspaper Cumhuriyet the Turkish parliament's human rights committee has approved the transfer of Ocalan, whose death sentence in June 1999 was later commuted to life imprisonment.
"Our committee recently inspected the prison at Sincan (on the outskirts of Ankara) and found it suitable: if not, the transfer could also be made to another establishment," the committee's vice-president Cavit Torun told the newspaper.
"It is a question of finding a solution other than solitary confinement (for Ocalan)," Torun said, "since extending a state of isolation could turn out to be counter-productive."
Lawyers for Ocalan, former leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) now renamed Kadek, say he has respiratory difficulties, sinusitis, a heart condition and kidney problems.
Human rights activists and Kurdish sympathisers, inside and outside Turkey, have been calling for an end to Ocalan's solitary confinement as well as demanding a general amnesty for the leaders of the Kurdish rebellion.
On Friday a publisher promoting a book on human rights had posters showing Ocalan with the slogan "his health is our health" pasted up in several Turkish cities.
The posters were not to be seen Saturday in Istanbul, while in the western city of Izmir a 19- year-old bill-poster was arrested and could face charges under anti-terrorist legislation.
http://www.dozame.org/images/articles/20030913075509476_1.jpg
http://www.dozame.org
Earlier this year he claimed that conditions on the island of Imrali, in the sea of Marmara, were causing him serious health problems and warned of the consequences if "something happened" to him.
According to the newspaper Cumhuriyet the Turkish parliament's human rights committee has approved the transfer of Ocalan, whose death sentence in June 1999 was later commuted to life imprisonment.
"Our committee recently inspected the prison at Sincan (on the outskirts of Ankara) and found it suitable: if not, the transfer could also be made to another establishment," the committee's vice-president Cavit Torun told the newspaper.
"It is a question of finding a solution other than solitary confinement (for Ocalan)," Torun said, "since extending a state of isolation could turn out to be counter-productive."
Lawyers for Ocalan, former leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) now renamed Kadek, say he has respiratory difficulties, sinusitis, a heart condition and kidney problems.
Human rights activists and Kurdish sympathisers, inside and outside Turkey, have been calling for an end to Ocalan's solitary confinement as well as demanding a general amnesty for the leaders of the Kurdish rebellion.
On Friday a publisher promoting a book on human rights had posters showing Ocalan with the slogan "his health is our health" pasted up in several Turkish cities.
The posters were not to be seen Saturday in Istanbul, while in the western city of Izmir a 19- year-old bill-poster was arrested and could face charges under anti-terrorist legislation.
http://www.dozame.org/images/articles/20030913075509476_1.jpg
http://www.dozame.org