At a time when pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) officials have been voicing concerns about the health of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkey’s Justice Ministry has given permission for Öcalan’s brother to visit him in prison during the Eid al-Adha holiday.
HDP deputies have been expressing concern about Öcalan’s health since a failed military coup on July 15. Some HDP deputies have even begun a hunger strike demanding that Öcalan be permitted visits from his lawyers.
Öcalan has been incarcerated in a high security prison on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara for 15 years.
The PKK leader will be able to meet with his brother Mehmet between Sept. 14 and 18, during which all inmates in prisons will be allowed to visit with family members, on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, which will begin to be observed in Turkey on Monday.
Since the July 15 coup attempt, the HDP has been calling for an independent commission to look into Öcalan’s condition over fears that July 15 coup plotters would have sought to target him.
The party says that an “attack” on Öcalan by the “putschists” could “drag Turkey into an irreversible civil war.”