From: "cpimllib" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 10:14:50 +0530 Subject: [L-I] Protest Against Prison Brutality in Turkey Historic Prison Struggle in Turkey Muharrem Horoz, 28, a member of the banned Turkish Workers Communist (ML) had been fasting for 236 days at northwest Kandira prison. died in the Anatolia and Ozgur Gelecek hospital. with this martyrdom,Turkish prisoner hunger strike death toll hits 30 An epic yet painful struggle is taking place in Turkey's prisons, long known for vicious brutality toward inmates. Over 1,000 Turkish political prisoners and their supporters have participated in a protest hunger strike against prison conditions since last October--one of the longest recorded such actions in world history. . More than 50 of those still living have lost their mental faculties due to hunger. Another 31 protesting prisoners were slaughtered and many more were injured when the Turkish army went on a rampage against them last December. Heroic hunger strikers are mostly socialists and communists. The 48-nation Council of Europe and various countries have called on Turkey to make concessions to end the protest. Dublin government last April publicly regretted the deaths in Turkey and urged Ankara to find a prompt solution.But no response form this NATO member and US ally. The Turkish political prisoners protesting government plans to transfer them from dormitory-like incarceration wards to so-called "F-type" facilities modeled on U.S.-style ultra-maximum security prisons (replete with behavior modification features and isolation in tiny cells). "The purpose of the new system," said Turkish former political prisoner Cemile Cakir at a forum in Boston June 17, "is aimed at breaking down the high level of solidarity and organization among Turkish prisoners" in the wards. The meeting was sponsored by the group Justice for Turkish Political Prisoners and the International Action Center. The hunger strike was organized by prisoners from the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHAKA-C), the Communist Party of Turkey-Marxist-Leninist (TKO-ML), and the Communist Workers Party of Turkey (TIP), but inmates from other political organization soon participated. There are about 12,000 political prisoners in Turkey, representing the left and revolutionary forces, the Kurdish struggle, militant Muslim groups and independent progressives. By mid-December the government agreed to discuss , but "the Turkish army attacked 21 prisons with bombs and chemical weapons on Dec. 19, resulting in a massacre." The hunger strikers were then forcibly taken to F-type facilities. Many were tortured upon arrival. This is the third mass hunger strike in Turkish prisons in recent years. 74-day hunger strike took place in 1984, resulting in four deaths from starvation. The second, lasting 79 days, took place in 1996, resulting in 12 deaths. Left-wing and human rights groups an true democrats around the world have condemned the Turkish government's responsibility for the strike. CPI(ML) , while condumning the gross human right violation,urge the Turkish Govt. to change the fascist treatment of opposition political prsoners, to give up the prison barbarism, concede the democratic demand of the political prisoners instead of administering a death chamber for killing the fighters for a better society. _________________________________________________ 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] __________________________________________________
