From: James Tait <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Turkey: Police Clash With Hunger-Strike Supporters Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=2001091508280 00293875_aolns.src Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001 Turkish police clash with hunger strike supporters ISTANBUL, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Turkish police clashed with protesters outside an Istanbul house occupied by leftist hunger strikers on Saturday and used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them, a human rights group and witnesses said. The house in the Kucuk Armutlu district of Istanbul is the base for a group of former prisoners and their families who are on a months-long hunger strike in protest at prison reforms. A 32-year-old woman who had been living in the house died on Friday, bringing the total number of deaths in the hunger strikes to 34. Witnesses said police had tried to break up a crowd of people gathered around the body of the dead woman as it was carried out of the house to be taken to the funeral. Police used tear gas and water cannon to break up the crowd and later set up road blocks nearby to stop traffic coming in. One witness said he had seen around 20 people detained. Police declined to comment on the operation. Reuters reporters at the scene said dozens of supporters of the hunger strikers had set up barricades around the house after the initial clashes and were burning tyres. A police armoured car rammed the barricade but retreated when protesters threw stones. After a tense standoff lasting several hours police returned in force with five armoured vehicles and dozens of troops to break up the barricades and disperse the protesters, who were throwing petrol bombs and stones, using more tear gas. Supporters of the hunger strikers said several people were lightly injured in the clashes which occurred just days after a suicide bombing, claimed by an extreme leftist group, which killed two police officers and an Australian tourist. BREAKING STRANGLEHOLD The hunger strikes began in prisons late last year in protest at the introduction of new cell-based jails to replace prisons based on large dormitory wards. Many prisoners and their families strongly oppose the new jails, saying they make inmates more vulnerable to abuse by prison wardens. Ankara says the new jails meet European standards and are essential to break the stranglehold of political groups and organised criminals in larger prison wards. Turkey tried to end the protests last December by raiding jails across the country and enforcing prison transfers but some 30 inmates and two soldiers died in the raids. A leftist group called the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) said this week it had carried out Monday's suicide bombing at an Istanbul police station that killed the bomber and three others. The group said the bombing was in support of the hunger strikers and to avenge the crackdown on prisons last year. Graffiti in favour of the DHKP/C are a common sight in the Kucuk Armutlu district, a working-class neighbourhood in the European side of the city overlooking the Bosphorus. -- Press Agency Ozgurluk In Support of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey http://www.ozgurluk.org _________________________________________________ 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] __________________________________________________
