The Imrali delegation, as has become known, is named after Turkey’s high security island prison where Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan has been detained in cruel isolation for 22 years.
Laura Quagliuolo, editor and author of children’s books and an activist in Rete Jin, an Italian network of women in support of the Kurdish women’s movement, was part of the 2021 Imrali delegation. It has recently published its report.
Quagliuolo told
Green Left, that once again, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government had ignored their requests for discussions and to visit the imprisoned Kurdish leader.
“The Turkish state has never answered the requests of the several delegations that were asking to visit Öcalan or to meet with Turkish authorities, even if in the delegation there were professors, MP's and other important people. Not this time as well.”