sipila
Sun, 25 Mar 2001 19:20:38 -0800
From: Press Agency Ozgurluk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 04:32:13 +0200 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: "[Ozgurluk.Org]" Turkey/Hungerstrike: Hikmet Sami Turk keeps playing hardball 26 March 2001, Copyright © Turkish Daily News F-type regulations to be completed when hunger strikes end Ankara- Turkish Daily News Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk said on Sunday that regulations on newly built high security F-type prisons will be completed only after inmates end hunger strikes. Answering Virtue Party (FP) deputy Mehmet Bekaroglu's official question about the unrest in Turkey's prisons and the structure of F-type prisons, Turk said the regulations will include international standardization of F-type prisons and talks with the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission and nongovernmental organizations. A number of inmates have been carrying out death fasts in efforts to protest the F-type prisons. Last week, an inmate died and human rights associations say others are in critical conditions. Turk said the majority of the problems in prisons have been solved. Turkey has experienced numerous problems in prisons recently, which cannot be defined solely in terms of uprisings and human rights violations. The government has been working on trying to solve the shortcomings of the present situation by constructing a new type of prison called the F-type prison. But the government's solution -- F-type prisons consisting of one- or three-inmate cells instead of dormitories -- is turning into a problem itself. The government's claim is that small prison cells are crucial to ending riots, hostage-takings and hunger strikes by inmates who are currently housed in dormitories of up to 100 individuals. As a result Turkey is engaged in a program to build this type of facility. Prisoners loyal to Kurdish and Islamist groups often run their own dormitories like recruiting and initiation centers. On the other side of the dispute, inmates and families of inmates are taking every opportunity to protest the government's decision to construct this new type of prison. Inmates' families fear that the new prisons carry the potential risk of violating human rights and are harmful to the prisoners' physical and psychological well-being. Meanwhile human rights groups also maintain that torture is common in Turkish prisons and that leftist and Kurdish prisoners are sometimes singled out for abuse. Critics of the new, more segregated system say prisoners will be more vulnerable in smaller cells. -- Press Agency Ozgurluk In Support of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey http://www.ozgurluk.org DHKC: http://www.ozgurluk.org/dhkc _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________