İmralı
| İmralı | ||
|---|---|---|
| Waters | Sea of Marmara | |
| Geographical location | 40 ° 32 '13 " N , 28 ° 31' 56" E | |
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| length | 8 kilometers | |
| broad | 3 km | |
| area | 25 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 217 m | |
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İmralı (formerly Emrali , Greek Καλόλιμνος Kalolimnos ) is the fourth largest island in the Marmara Sea and serves Turkey as a prison island . The island is named after the Ottoman admiral and conqueror of the island, Emir Ali.
The island is 8 km long in north-south direction and 3 km from west to east. The area is 25 km². The highest point is the Türk Tepesi (Turkish Hill) at 217 m .
story
The island was inhabited by Greeks until 1923 . 1200 people lived in 250 houses. There was a school and three monasteries. The island lived from agriculture (onions) and fishing.
With the population exchange between Greece and Turkey after the end of the First World War ( Treaty of Lausanne ), the entire island was evacuated and came under the administration of the Turkish Navy .
jail
The island has served as a prison island since 1935. The prison is a closed high-security penal institution type F .
Well-known former inmates were the director Yılmaz Güney , ex-prime minister Adnan Menderes , ex-foreign minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and ex-finance minister Hasan Polatkan . The last three were sentenced to death after the military coup in 1960 and executed on the island in September 1961 .
In 1977 the American writer Billy Hayes published the book Midnight Express together with William Hoffer, in which he describes his stay on the prison island İmralı and his escape from there in 1975. At that time, the prisoners were working in a fruit and vegetable canning factory. The book was published in German a year later and was filmed in 1978 by Alan Parker under the name 12 o'clock - Midnight Express .
Abdullah Öcalan , the ideological leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has been imprisoned on the island since 1999 . He was the only prisoner there until November 2009. The inmates previously detained there were transferred to other prisons. At the end of 2008 the Turkish government announced plans to house some other prisoners in a new building. According to the Justice Minister, the prison on the island is a Type F prison . Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said in August 2009 that the conversion of İmralı Prison into a closed, high-security penal facility had been completed. The capacity had been increased to nine prisoners, so that eight more prisoners would be transferred to Abdullah Öcalan. Which prisoners these are will be determined within the framework of the Prison Act. Since November 15, 2009, Öcalan is no longer in solitary confinement, but is imprisoned with five other inmates.
Individual evidence
- ^ Billy Hayes, William Hoffer: Midnight Express. Dutton, 1977, ISBN 0-525-15605-4
- ^ Daily newspaper Radikal of August 18, 2009 ; accessed on August 20, 2009
- ↑ The Standard of November 17, 2009 , accessed September 4, 2010