Press release, februari 14, 2017 - An international delegation, organized by the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) and consisting of 13 members from Europe and North America, including Members of European Parliament and of the Council of Europe, academics, and journalists, has arrived in Turkey. The delegation has scheduled meetings with representatives from the Kurdish Freedom Movement, political parties, trade unions, and other civil society organizations.

The delegation includes: two current Members of the European Parliament, Costas Mavrides and Julie Ward; one former MEP, Francis Wurtz; two current representatives from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Miren Edurne Gorrotxategi and Ulla Sandbaek; a former Member of Iceland's Parliament and trade unionist, Ögmundur Jonasson; the veteran Foreign Correspondent for The Guardian, Jonathan Steele; the Chair of the Westminster Justice and Peace Commission, Father Joe Ryan; two members of the Advisory Board of the Transnational Institute for Social Ecology, Dimitri Roussopoulos and Federico Venturini; and a Lecturer from the University of Cambridge, Thomas Jeffrey Miley.

The delegation has applied to the Turkish Minister of Justice, requesting a meeting with the leader of the Kurdish Freedom Movement, Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned and isolated in inhumane conditions on Imrali Island for over nineteen years now.

In a letter to the Turkish Minister of Justice on behalf of the Delegation, sent on the 30th of January, MEP Julie Ward wrote: "Mr. Bekir Bozdağ, we ask you to give us permission so that we can visit İmralı Prison, consult with Mr. Öcalan, and inform him so that the peace process can restart. We believe that Öcalan will give peaceful support to the Kurdish issue and the democratization process in Turkey. The Delegation asks for your permission to visit İmralı Prison on February 17, 18 or 19, 2017. If it is not possible for the entire delegation to visit, we ask that a small group visits the prison. We ask you to give your permission to a group that would be chosen from the delegation to visit İmralı. We also ask you to meet with one of our colleagues and exchange ideas on the restart of the peace process before the meeting with Mr. Öcalan. We will be honored if you respond to our requests positively. We await your response due to the seriousness and urgency of the situation."

In addition to this, the delegation will also seek to visit imprisoned representatives from the People's Democratic Party (HDP); and it intends to witness and to gather information about the current situation in the country. It plans to tour Diyarbakir/Amed and other cities in the Kurdish region that have endured military assaults, curfews, and other infringements of civil rights since the unravelling of the peace process.

The delegation will prepare a report about its findings, which it plans to distribute widely and to present to the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations, among other international organizations.

For further information, contact Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley (Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken.); Julie Ward MEP (Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken.; Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken.); and Kariane Westrheim EUTCC (Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken., or +47 976 42 088).