[5] In January 1936 the first fifty inmates tasked to construct the dorms for the prison facility set foot on the island.

[6] Following the Turkish military coup in 1960, ex-Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was imprisoned on the island.

[8] After February 1999, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan was captured, the island was vacated and placed within a military zone.

[3] In November 2009, a new detention facility was inaugurated, to which Öcalan and five other prisoners coming from mainland Turkey were transferred.

[10] Inspired by the well detention conditions the inmates experienced in 1940s, the Turkish playwright Vedat Nedim Tör wrote the play Men in Imrali.

[14] In the film Yol by Yilmaz Güney, originally a government supported production designed to counteract the negative image of Turkish prisons portrayed in Midnight Express,[15] inmates are seen preparing to visit their homes.