Beverly Ann Keene, an Argentine human rights activist and economist, assessed the impact on Turkey's economy of the absolute isolation of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in Imrali Type F High Security Closed Prison and the lack of a solution to the Kurdish issue.  

 

Keene said that the isolation in İmralı is against international law and “intolerable” and criticized the silence of international institutions and organizations against this isolation. Pointing out that international powers are silent on the isolation because of Turkey's relationship with NATO and its geopolitical position, “If you look at the record of the European Human Rights Committee or the European Committee on the prevention of torture, what you can see are some movements, some attempts to address the situation, and then long periods of silence and no response. This is a situation that's totally unacceptable. What we have to do, and what many people and organizations around the world have been striving to do for years, is to continue to put pressure on governments around the world, to pressure the Turkish government to put an end to what is effectively complicity with an absolutely unacceptable situation” she said.

 

'NEED FOR STEP UP PRESSURE ON TURKEY'

 

Reminding that thousands of left-wing people were tortured to death in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, Keene noted that there was a similar silence at that time. “So this is something we see over and over again, and indeed it is the biggest challenge of the human rights protection systems, whether they're internationally or regionally the very same states that erect these systems are the states that violate them. So here is the challenge and the need for popular organizations, for social movements, for governments around the world to step up pressure on Turkey”

 

'THEY VIOLATE EVERY NORM'

 

Pointing to the campaign for the freedom of PKK Leader Öcalan, Keene said: “The reality of a political prisoner, who is now more than 75 years old as well, had been 25 years in prison again after having been kidnapped, having been transported illegally from one country to another country, of having enduring an absolutely irregular trial and supported for these 25 years, totally inhumane conditions of detention. And these last more than three and a half years now, almost of absolute isolation. there's nobody anywhere, there's no government anywhere in the world who should be able to accept these conditions. They violate every understanding, every law, every norm.” 

 

Referring to the connection between the crisis in the Turkish economy and the conflict, “The Turkish government puts a lot of its budgetary resources, into waging a war against the Kurdish people. Obviously, that's going to present some economic difficulties. So if there is a relationship between the crisis and the struggle of the Kurdish people; here, we could see that the Turkish state can resolve that very legally by changing its policy towards the Kurdish people. Building peace is economically much more constructive, much more positive than waging war” she said. 

 

Keene said following: “We're also in Argentina, facing very difficult situations now, and everyone is quite pessimistic about what will happen and how life will become much more difficult for people over the coming months. But as long as we are willing to organize, willing to resist and to build those struggles, then there is hope, there always must be hope.”