ISTANBUL - Lawyer Emran Emekçi said that the conspiracy was theoretically frustrated with the democratic modernity system developed by Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı and added: “The cases we filed at the ECHR are not being decided. In other words, they are spreading the legal dimension of the conspiracy over time.” 

 

The global powers attempting to intervene in the Middle East with the Greater Middle East Project (BOP) put the conspiracy plan into action on October 9, 1998 to destroy and liquidate PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan, whom they saw as an obstacle. This process, which started when Öcalan, who had to leave Syria, went to Europe, continued for 130 days and finally he was placed in the specially designed İmralı Island Prison and placed under isolation. 

 

 

 

Emran Emekçi, one of the lawyers of Asrin Law Office, who is the lawyer of PKK Leader Öcalan, evaluated the goals of the international conspiracy in its 26th year, the isolation system carried out in İmralı and the effects of the paradigm Abdullah Öcalan developed against it.

 

'THEY ARE BASED ON THE PAWN KURD'

 

Emran Emekçi said that the foundations of the international conspiracy against Abdullah Öcalan began to be laid in the early 90s, “The 1990s also corresponded to the dissolution of real socialism and the transition to a unipolar world order. In this sense, the Middle East was an important field for the USA, which leads the unipolar world. Kurds, on the other hand, have always been kept as objects of exploitation in the history of 5 thousand years of state classes. They could not show a will for their own self-interest. Every person who set out for freedom was somehow neutralized by conspiracies and internal betrayals, and then encircled again. Mr. Öcalan explained this with the 'circle theory' and said, 'For thousands of years the Middle East and world states have been based on the pawn Kurd, but they could not digest the free-willed Kurd independent of hegemony. Even the most friendly countries were at most approaching the Kurdish Kurdish in terms of intelligence and refused to recognize its legality” he said. 

 

'GIVING UP THE LINE OF FREEDOM WAS BEING IMPOSED'

 

Emekçi stated that the balances in the Middle East started to change again with Abdullah Öcalan and that the movement led by Abdullah Öcalan showed a great development in favor of the peoples in the Middle East, and pointed out that this situation started to be seen as a threat by the global powers step by step. Emekçi said: “There was the Greater Middle East Project of the USA against the Democratic Middle East Project of Mr. Öcalan and they wanted to draw Mr. Öcalan into this project. They were saying, ‘In other words, give up your stance of freedom in favor of the peoples, come to our project,’ but Mr. Öcalan, with his principled attitude, said, 'I am a freedom fighter, I will not be a fighter for this or that. When they realized that they could not take Öcalan under their control, a neutralization operation had already been launched with some internal infiltrations. First, they wanted to physically destroy him with a bomb assassination in Damascus on May 6, 1996. These conspiracies were developed step by step with internal and external planning. Mr. Öcalan's space was gradually narrowed from both inside and outside and it was imposed to give up the line of freedom.”

 

'HE WAS DECLARED A PERSONA NON GRATA IN EUROPE'

 

Emekçi said that Abdullah Öcalan did not give up his insistence on the solution of the Kurdish issue despite all the pressures against him and that he preferred to go to Europe to continue this effort after he was expelled from Syria in the following period, and emphasized that Abdullah Öcalan was declared “persona non grata” during the 130-day period in Europe where he went for a solution. Emekçi described what happened in that process as follows: “Why do we call it an international conspiracy? Because many states had a hand in it. Greece, Russia, Italy, the USA, the UK, Israel, Arabia, Iran and Egypt. After Mr. Öcalan left Syria, he was first denied asylum in Greece. Then he was denied asylum in Russia and Italy dragged it out. England declared him persona non grata. France launched an investigation that it would arrest him if he came. Germany sent a 'don't come to my country' message. Then they closed the airports and dragged him to Kenya. They really directed everything in a pre-planned way. For example, Mr. Öcalan said, 'I couldn't act on my own will because they wouldn't let me. I wanted to cross from Russia to Kurdistan via Armenia, but they first agreed and then gave up'. Finally, they deliberately dragged me to Kenya via Greece, which is an isolated region under US control where there is no Kurdish people. That's how he was handed over to Turkey.”

 

'EXCEPTIONAL LEGAL REGIME STARTED WITH ÖCALAN'

 

Stating that Abdullah Öcalan was handed over to Turkey through an illegal kidnapping method, “After the September 11 attack, we say that the US developed a new exceptional legal regime around the world. In fact, this was first applied with Öcalan. When we look at the 2002-2005 ECHR judgment, it was stated in the judgment, 'Although there is no extradition treaty etc., the Kenyan government did not react. 'Abdullah Öcalan is a dangerous person who threatens all the states of the world, so he can be kidnapped with dhimmi agreements'. So this is what we call exceptional law. Because Europe also went outside its own legal system. The ECHR also covered up the piratical kidnapping here. It was a political decision. Instead of taking legal credibility and human rights as a basis, it made a decision according to the legal line of states. After this decision, there were kidnappings like in Guantanamo” he said. 

 

'LAW BYPASSED'

 

Commenting on Abdullah Öcalan's being sentenced to death with short trials after he was brought to Turkey as “bypassing the law”, Emekçi said: “Abdullah Öcalan had said ‘İmralı is a theater’. In the trials held in İmralı, despite a file consisting of 80 folders and thousands of pages, the death penalty was handed down with quick trials held in a short period of one month. During this time, Mr. Öcalan was not even given the right to defense. In other words, everything was pre-planned and the law was just for show. The conspiracy was built on deepening the Kurdish-Turkish war and various calculations were made on this. Since Öcalan broke their game, this decision was their response to him. Mr. Öcalan said, 'Being an instrument of this conspiracy is a continuation of this conspiracy. I am now in the position of a person who is not getting a fair trial, who is being extrajudicially executed'. As if this was not enough, step by step they aggravated the isolation and brought it to the level of absolute isolation today.”

 

'IMRALI IS A 3-LEGGED SYSTEM'

 

Emekçi stated that İmralı Prison was also a part of the conspiracy and that Abdullah Öcalan stated in his interviews that İmralı was managed by a 3-legged system consisting of the USA, Europe and Turkey, and added: “Abdullah Öcalan's status there was that of a political hostage. Mr. Öcalan calls the İmralı period 'the third period of life'. They made this decision with the expectation that Öcalan would be subjected to rude resistance and executed. When this did not happen, they put into effect the politics of rotting him over time. But he gave a stronger response there with his defenses and by building the system of democratic modernity. When the goal envisioned with İmralı was not realized, they put absolute isolation into effect in order to cut his connection with the outside world.”  

 

'THE LEGAL DIMENSION OF THE CONSPIRACY ALSO CONTINUES'

 

Stating that the absolute isolation in İmralı has been confirmed by the decisions of international institutions, Emekçi pointed out that the current attitude of these institutions cannot be considered independent of the international conspiracy. Emekçi said: “For example, in its 2014 decision, the ECHR determined and proved that the ‘imprisonment until death regime and the İmralı system’ assigned to Öcalan is a state of torture. But the interesting point here is that this decision has been dragging on for 10 years. The lawsuits we filed at the ECHR are not being finalized. The Committee of Ministers has been dragging it out for years and our applications to the Constitutional Court have been dragging it out. The CPT is the same way. In other words, the legal dimension of the conspiracy is also dragging on. In a statement he made in 2011, Erdoğan said, 'We have reached a compromise with Europe on this issue'. There is a compromise in the background. The ECtHR, the Constitutional Court, the Committee of Ministers, the CPT are all spreading it out over time. In other words, they have decided together and are implementing it together.”

 

'CONTINUED SOLUTION INITIATIVES IN IMRALI'

 

Emekçi said that despite the isolation, Abdullah Öcalan continued his efforts to solve problems, especially the Kurdish problem, in İmralı and added the following: “From 2011 onwards, he developed the Third Way thesis with the formation of a party called the Democratic Nation Bloc. His mission with the Third Way thesis was as follows; 'There is no political will or interlocutor to solve this problem. Let the Third Way take all social democrats into its ranks and come to power, change the constitution. Open the doors to İmralı and let's solve this problem.’ Again, those who followed the 2013-2015 period will remember Öcalan's efforts. Commissions such as ecology, women's liberation, economy, law, constitution, democratic politics and civil society commissions were established. All 10 of these commissions were commissions that brought solutions to the problems we are currently experiencing and responded to all the crises in Turkey, which you might call multiple crises. This is what Mr. Öcalan was saying in his last lawyer meeting in August 2019 when he said 'I can solve this problem in a week'. This is always on the agenda, that is, if the state and governments show the will, it will be solved; if not, it will be solved in the medium term with the Third Way coming to power. In the long term, it will be solved by accomplishing the tasks of building the system of democratic modernity on a general regional global scale. All three are intertwined and mutually supportive.”

 

'CONSPIRACY FOILED IN THEORY'

 

Emekçi stated that Abdullah Öcalan's stance in İmralı and the paradigm he has developed have theoretically nullified the conspiracy and underlined that the complete end of the conspiracy is directly linked to the social struggle. Emekçi said: “For Mr. Öcalan, the conspiracy was theoretically nullified. I mean, anyone who reads his defenses understands this. The fact that it was completely nullified in practice is related to the peoples' fulfillment of their duty to build the system of democratic modernity on a local, regional and universal scale. If the forces involved in the conspiracy are convinced, the problem is solved. As in the case of Mandela, the Apartheid regime was supported by Israel, the US and the UK, but international and domestic campaigns led the governments of these countries to withdraw their support from the Apartheid regime and De Klark, who ran the regime, backed down. Mandela also solved the problem. Öcalan's position is the same. We fought for 10 years for the ECHR to impose sanctions and they did, but we must also recognize that this sanction decision is the product of the campaigns carried out by the Kurdish people and their friends in the international arena. Letters to the CPT and other international institutions from Nobel Prize-winning writers, legal circles and various sectors have been effective. For example, as a result of this, in the last meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on this issue, it opened the way to sanctions by preparing an interim resolution on Mr. Öcalan and gave time to Turkey on this issue.” 

 

'EMBRACING ÖCALAN IS EMBRACING FREEDOM'

 

Emekçi continued as follows: “If they are following the tactic of lowering the agenda, making us forget, spreading it over time, we will not lower the agenda in a sensitive way. Because İmralı means the salvation of all of us. It means the salvation not only of Kurds but also of trees, wolves, sea and water. It means the exit from the economic crisis, the cessation of the war, the money that goes to the war going to education and health. It means the end of Turkey's dependence on these capitalist hegemonic gods and the gradual emergence of a country that stands on its own feet. These facts can be seen even when comparing the periods when the doors of İmralı were opened and closed. Therefore, embracing Öcalan and defending his freedom means embracing one's own freedom. We need to recognize the hand that sabotaged Öcalan's solution processes. Do we condemn that hand and let this crisis, corruption and decay continue? Or should we put a stop to this hand?”

 

MA / İbrahim Irmak