From: "Stasi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Peoples War] Turkish Death-Fast: Background To The Struggle This is from a pamphlet on the Death Fast that is being prepared. It's quite long and there is a lot of detail in it's several sections, but after reading it none of you will be able to claim "I didn't know". "We Are Right! We Will Win!" (DHKC Slogan) ----------------------------------- DOCUMENTATION ON THE DEATH FAST IN TURKEY ------------------------------------ BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEATH FAST IN TURKEY ======================================== October 20, 2000 : 816 prisoners of who had been tried or would be tried for connections to the DHKP-C, TKP(ML) and TKIP started an unlimited hunger strike in various prisons. November 10-12, 2000 : The TAYAD families organised the � Congress on the reality of the prisons, the problems and proposals for a solution �. November 14, 2000: The TAYAD families started a Death Fast. November 19, 2000: The unlimited hunger strike was turned into a Death Fast. November 25, 2000: Around 7,000 people participated in the � Meeting against the F-Type prisons � in Ankara. November 29, 2000: Second Death Fast teams started with their Death Fast action. November 30, 2000: Other members of TAYAD in the Aegean region started the Death Fast. December 2, 2000: In the Yuksel Caddesi in Ankara, a thousand people call for the fulfilment of the demands of the prisoners. December 7, 2000: Intellectuals and artists started a hunger strike. December 8, 2000: The TAYAD families organised a sitdown strike in front of the �Cankaya Castle�. December 9, 2000: Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk declared that the �opening of the F-Type prisons has been postponed�. December 9, 2000: A delegation of a group of intellectual artists and TBMM (Turkish Parlament) Human Rights Commission member Mehmet Bekaroglu spoke with the representatives of the prisoners in the resistance. Later on representatives of TMMOB (Union of Architectural Chambers of Turkey), TTB (Union of Medical Chambers), the Bar of Istanbul and TAYAD participated as well. December 9, 2000: Fascists who attackd the solidarity hunger strike tent in Rotterdam (Holland) killed Cafer Dereli. December 11, 2000 - Attack on the resistance started: Ecevit gave the signal of the attack by saying �As long as public interest continues, this action cannot end�. December 12, 2000: The police rapid reaction forces marched in several cities of Turkey shouting for �revenge� December 12, 2000: The prisoners' families were attacked by police in Kizilay. Young people who were building barricades at Sakarya Stret were attacked by police with gas and smoke bombs. December 12, 2000: The legal left parties who closed their doors to the relatives of prisoners during the attack in Kizilay were booed by the masses. December 13, 2000: The RTUK (Upper Institution of Radio and Television) and the DGM (State Security Court) began to apply censorship over news concerning the Death Fast. December 14, 2000: The third Death Fast teams started the Death Fast. December 15-16, 2000: While stopping negotiations, the government threatened to use forcible medical intervention. The prisoners stated that they would burn themselves in the case of an attack. December 19, 2000 : MASSACRE! The authorities burnt down the prisons in which revolutionaries are imprisoned, 28 prisoners being killed. The prisoners were transferred to the F-type prisons. December 20, 2000: LIES! While the operation called �Return to Life� was still continuing, the authorities spread the lie that �there is no death fast!� December 21, 2000: The TAYAD and IHD democratic institutions were raided, amongst others. December 23, 2000: The funerals of eight revolutionary prisoners are held in Gazi (Istanbul) with the participation of 3,500 people. January 3, 2001: The fighter of the DHKC, Gultekin Koc, carried out a sacrifice action at the Police Headquarters in Sisli (Istanbul). January 3, 2001: They started force-feeding the Death Fast resisters. Semra Askeri and Hatice Yazgan were the first resisters whose memory was wiped out by this method. February 11-13, 2001: TAYAD members destroyed the silence with their march to Ankara. March 21, 2001: The Death Fast has given its first martyr in the F-type prisons: Cengiz Soydas lost his life. April 2, 2001: During an action carried out by fighters of the DHKC in Bahcelievler, as revenge for the massacre of 28 prisoners on 19th of December 2000, two policemen died. April 19, 2000: With the change of article 16 of the Anti-Terror Law, isolation and torture were legalised. May 11, 2001: The Fourth Death Fast teams started their action. May 20, 2001: The number of prisoners who were left handicapped through forced medical intervention in the hospitals turned into torture centres exceeded 40. May 21, 2001 : The members of TAYAD were prevented from entering Ankara. May 25, 2001: With the participation of different democratic organisations, the families of TAYAD and TUYAB organised a march in Ankara, demanding the start of negotiations with the prisoners. May 31, 2001: 14 prisoners who were continuing their resistance and lost their memory were released. Releases in order to break the resistance also followed in the next days. June 1, 2001: Sevgi Erdogan and Gokhan Ozocak, who were the first prisoners released as a result of the policy of trying to break the resistance, announced that they would continue their Death Fast outside prison. June 3, 2001: The Fifth Death Fast teams started. June 4, 2001: The Second Death Fast team of the TAYAD families started the Death Fast. June 7, 2001: A delegation of the European Parliament spoke to Sadi Ozbolat, a representative of the prisoners in Kandira F-Type prison. June 9, 2001: A meeting in Ankara calling for negotiation with the prisoners was held with the participation of 3,000 people. June 26, 2001: In spite of being surrounded by police, the Platform for Rights and Freedom organised a march in the Gazi district of Istanbul on the 250th day of the Death Fast resistance. July 2001: From the resistance house to the resistance neighbourhood; More than ten revolutionary prisoners who were released from the prisons declared that they were continuing their Death Fast in Armutlu (Istanbul). July 2, 2001: With the Forensic Medical Report pubilshed in the newspaper Radikal, the reality of the massacre in Bayrampasa prison and the fact that six women were burned alive was proved once again. July 6, 2001: The fighter of the DHKC, Ismail Karaman, was martyred by the police in Istanbul. July 4-14, 2001: Gokhan Ozocak was martyred on the 4th of July and Sevgi Erdogan on the 14th of July. They had both continued their Death Fast after being released from prison. July 15, 2001: 600 people protested at Sultanahmet in Istanbul when permission was denied for a meeting on the Death Fast. July 2001: The Death Fast was started in resistance houses in Ankara, Malatya, Trabzon and Sefakoy. July 2001: The resistance neighbourhood Armutlu was surrounded by the police; they started to intimidate visitors and to disturb the people working in the town hall. The resisters warned that they would set themselves on fire if Armutlu was attacked. July 28, 2001: The Sixth Death Fast teams started their Death Fast. August 8, 2001: The tecHnical bureau of the magazine Vatan was raided by police, in order to silence the voice of the Death Fast. Together with the workers of the paper the general secretary of TAYAD and the chief editor of Vatan were arrested and put in jail. August 2001: To break the police siege in Armutlu, the TAYAD families called everybody to Armutlu with the appeal � Take a clove and come! � September 15, 2001: The police attacked the funeral of Umus Sahingoz, who fell martyr in Armutlu, and also attacked the resistance houses of Armutlu with gas bombs, plastic bullets and armoured cars. The people of Armutlu built barricades and repelled the attack. September 26, 2001: The Seventh Death Fast teams started their action. November 19, 2000 LONG LIVE OUR DEATH FAST RESISTANCE! ==================================== The Indefinite Hunger Strike by DHKP-C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front), TKP(ML) (Communist Party of Turkey (Marxist-Leninist)) and TKIP (Communist Workers' Party of Turkey) prisoners in the jails of Turkey which was started on October 20 is in its 30th day. Their just and legitimate demands have not been accepted, it is as though the authorities are merely awaiting their deaths. The only weapon the prisoners have is their own bodies and they announced that from today the Indefinite Hunger Strike resistance has been turned into a Death Fast. The prisoners, in the knowledge that they will win, are saying, "FOR OUR DEMANDS WE HAVE LAID OUR BODIES DOWN TO DIE, FOR THEIR SAKE WE WILL DIE BUT WE WILL NOT GO INTO THE CELLS," and here is the latest information we have: Umraniye Prison (Istanbul): 15 DHKP-C, 5 TKP(ML), 1 TKIP; Cankiri Prison: 5 DHKP-C, 1 TKIP; Bursa Prison: 3 DHKP-C, 7 TKP(ML); Aydin Prison: 3 DHKP-C; Canakkale Prison: 10 DHKP-C, 1 TKP(ML); Malatya Prison: 2 DHKP-C, 4 TKP(ML); Bartin Prison: 5 DHKP-C, 2 TKP(ML), 1 TKIP; Gebze Prison: 5 TKP(ML), 1 TKIP; Usak Prison: 3 DHKP-C, 1 TKP(ML); Buca Prison (Izmir): 3 DHKP-C, 1 TKP (ML); Ulucanlar Prison (Ankara, scene of last year's massacre): 1 DHKP-C, 1 TKIP; Bayrampasa Prison (Istanbul): 10 DHKP-C, 3 TKP(ML); Ceyhan Prison: 3 DHKP-C, 2 TKP(ML), 1 TKIP; these are the numbers of prisoners by affiliation who have joined the Death Fast. (Translator's note: exactly 100 prisoners are on the Death Fast, 63 DHKP-C, 31 TKP(ML) and 6 TKIP.) Today there are already 7 Death Fast teams. Outside of the prisons, in support for the resistance, mothers who had been on hunger strike for six days together with their sons and daughters have turned their protest into a Death Fast. On the 19th of December, the 60th day of the death fast, the Turkish state launched an operation in 20 prisons at the same time. It was an attempt to break the Death Fast resistance. With demagogy and lies about "saving human lives" they tried to deceive public opinion. Massive support outside the prisons which was organised within all democratic structures and even affected parts of the bourgeoisie, intellectuals and artists. The government had to stop this support immediately. The state called its murder operation "Operation Return to Life". Today even the government of Turkey had to expose its own massacre. Autopsy reports clearly show that the prisoners were brutally murdered by the state forces. Mrs Yildiz Ercan, a former prison officer who was still on duty during the operation in the prisons also confirms that the massacre was planned and she resigned some months after these events. She herself confirmed that four tons of bombs, heavy weapons and chemical weapons were used against the prisoners and every kind of physical and psychological torture was applied. A total of 28 prisoners were killed during the operation. Hundreds were injured and left handicapped. Most of the prisoners on Death Fast were directly deported to the F-Type prisons, which were officially opened then. Some others were brought to hospital for medical intervention. Almost every prisoner was tortured and mistreated even during and after the transfer to the new prisons. Many prisoners have stated that they were raped by the soldiers. After their deportation to the F-types, other organisations also participated in the resistance: TO THE PRESS AND PUBLIC OPINION --------------------------------------------- Before the eyes of public opinion in Turkey and the entire world, the state once again showed its murderous face towards the resistance which had started in 20 prisons on October 20, 2000 with an Indefinite Hunger Strike and which was gradually turned into a Death Fast from November 19. Although our demands were very concrete and just, the state gave obscure and vague replies to these demands, and by saying "We have postponed the F-Type prisons, finish the resistance," it sought to distract us, and broke off negotiations. It carried out the attack and massacre which it called "Return to Life", a massacre which it had said it had been "preparing for about a year", and which was carried out not long after the state said it was "postponing" the F-Type prisons. Once again it was seen how much the state's words are merely lies. On December 19 in 20 prisons, all revolutionary prisoners were attacked and 28 of our people were slaughtered, dozens left handicapped and hundreds wounded. The state's aim with this attack was to break the resistance of revolutionary prisoners. But it did not happen as the state expected. In the prisons all the revolutionary prisoners responded with resistance to this attack aimed at annihilating them. Following the attack, we were subjected to systematic torture, put in the F-Type prisons and isolated. The state officials who spread the lie that we had resisted (in the old prisons) because of "pressure from organisations and had been compelled against our will" were given a response when, even in the F-Type conditions, our just and honourable resistance could not be broken, we showed that we would never accept F-Type isolation, new people joined the Death Fast and all revolutionary prisoners continued the Indefinite Hunger Strike en masse. All who are on the side of the people, justice, democracy and freedom can and must not remain silent witnesses to what we have experienced. ONCE AGAIN WE ANNOUNCE THAT, --------------------------------------------- We will never accept F-Type isolation. Our resistance will go on until our demands are accepted, whatever the price that is paid. With resistance, we will emerge victorious from the F-Type prisons. Those who just stood by and watched and preferred to remain silent towards our resistance, and the state above all, will be responsible for the price we paid and will pay. Sooner or later, history will demand a reckoning for this. We appeal to all sensitive, democratic, progressive, intellectual and revolutionary public opinion to support our just and honourable resistance. WE WILL DESTROY THE F-TYPE ISOLATION CELLS! LONG LIVE OUR DEATH FAST RESISTANCE! LONG LIVE OUR GENERAL RESISTANCE! DOWN WITH FASCISM, LONG LIVE OUR STRUGGLE! WE WILL WIN, OUR PEOPLE WILL WIN! January 29, 2001 The DHKP-C, TKP(ML), TKIP, TKP/ML, MLSPB, MLKP, TIKB, TDP and TKP-Kivilcim Trial prisoners, represented by Ahmet Ozdemir, Cem Yildiz, Duygu Mutlu, Nezahat Turan, Hasan Yuksel, Kerim Tepeli, Siddik Ozcelik and Cafer Kurt (DHKP-C - Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front TKP(ML) and TKP/ML - Communist Party of Turkey Marxist-Leninist TKIP - Communist Workers' Party of Turkey MLSPB - Marxist-Leninist Armed Propaganda Unit MLKP - Marxist-Leninist Communist Party TIKB - Union of Revolutionary Communists of Turkey TDP - Revolution Party of Turkey TKP-Kivilcim - Communist Party of Turkey-Spark.) The death fasts and hunger strikes continued and so did the actions in solidarity outside prison. For a long period the media was silent on the events. They tried to make people forget that the resistance still continued. But at the same time the repression continued outside the prisons. Several democratic institutions were illegally closed down and raided by the police. Hundreds and even thousands of people were arrested in newspaper offices, in their houses and during demonstrations in support of the prisoners. Branches of the Human Rights Association were closed because they defended the hunger strike. As if it really wanted to save human lives, the Turkish state didn't accept any solidarity with the hunger strike, saying that everybody who defended it was assisting them to die. Several members of TAYAD were arrested and charged during hundreds of protests. They organised caravans to Ankara to meet with the Minister of Justice. The coaches in which they were driving were several times attacked by the police and even old mothers were brutally beaten with truncheons. Some people even fell into a coma. Hundreds of people were arrested. The state couldn't stop the resistance of the prisoners and so it tried force-feeding them. Day by day without being warned in advance, the prisoners were seized, taken to the hospitals and subjected to forced medical intervention. Because of the methods used by the collaborating doctors, dozens of prisoners lost their memory. (Serum was pumped into their veins at high pressure. This practice after more than 100 days on hunger strike - not to forget that it was even used on prisoners after more than 200 days - was deliberately intended to destroy the functioning of the brain and nerve cells. Although forced intervention is forbidden by the Conventions of Malta and Tokyo, the Turkish state even opened court proceedings against members of the Medical Association who refused to be an instrument of the state. Until today there was not a really strong reaction by the European governments against this practice. Several times they were warned but they waste a lot of time listening to the demagogies of reforms and changes to the Anti-Terror Law without listening to the appeals of the prisoners. The first demand of the political prisoners was the abolishment of the F-Type prisons. But they also announced some political demands at the beginning of the strike. The demands were formulated more concretely according to the latest conditions in a statement of June 14, 2001: Demands of the resisting prisoners ======================= 1) Architectural and legal reforms have to be made to the F-Type prisons. The existence of cells for one or three persons has to be abolished. The doors of the cells have to be kept open until the necessary reforms have been made. It has to be guaranteed that the prisoners and those awaiting trial can live together without any preconditions being placed upon them. The denial of living rights and isolation must end. Common living areas for the prisoners and those awaiting trial has to be created. The common facilities for sports, social and cultural activities, which are said to have been created, have to be opened for use without being bound to any preconditions. This has to be recognised as a right and the laws which prevent this have to be abolished. There has to be reforms to meet the requirements for sports, social and cultural activities between the different blocks. Legal publications (books, magazines and newspapers) have to be allowed, taking into account that even the recent law doesn't prohibit this. The examples of the confiscation of publications, the arbitrariness of this, have to cease. The obstacles placed before us regarding our rights to letters and communications have to be removed. The practice of limiting visits to 30 minutes when our visitors are travelling hundreds of kilometres and having their visit almost turned into a torture session has to end. These limits and this arbitrary behaviour has to be stopped. The right to an open visit must not be conditional. It most be allowed and in our favour. There must not be limits placed on articles of daily use like food and clothes which are brought to the prisons by our families. It has to be made possible for our families to hand over refrigerators, ovens, radios, typewriters and cassette recorders which are necessary articles for daily use. Regarding our legal problems, any arbitrary restrictions placed upon us during our talks with our lawyers has to be removed. The right of to have a "private consultation with our legal defence" has to be respected. Lawyers most be allowed to talk to more than one client at the same time and the arbitrariness of the humiliating and degrading treatment of our legal defence must end. The internal and external canteen requirements have to be regulated and made suitable. The practice of overpricing has to stop. The practice of "subjecting those who are imprisoned to charges", which forces prisoners to pay for electricity, television and medicine on their own, has to end. The right of the prisoners to be represented has to be recognised and practiced. The sentenced prisoners and those awaiting trial have to stay in the same common areas. Our demands and our rights have to be guaranteed by law by the state. They will be absolutely and completely applied to both the F-Type prisons and in all other prisons where political prisoners and those awaiting trial are kept, and they will be applied without making any changes. Any such changes or "improvements" which we judge to be trying to break down our thoughts have to be abandoned. 2. Article 16 of the Anti-Terror Law has to be removed. The change to article 16 has legitimised isolation and attacks. Isolation was put into law and consolidated by tying its practice to the arbitrariness within all the prisons. Furthermore the Minister of Justice has to keep the promise he made before 19th December, to remove the double standard of the "penalty execution" between political and social prisoners by making the necessary reforms to article 17 and to article 5 of the Anti-Terror Law which is connected to it. 3. The tripartite protocol has to be cancelled. This protocol has robbed us of our right to a defence. It has abolished the confidentiality regarding the trial documents between the lawyer and their client. It has to be cancelled as a whole because it not only attacks our right to defence but it is also the basis for the attacks and massacres on the prisoners. It also contains articles which are an attack upon our families and doctors. 4. The "Supervisory Committees" have to be represented not by those persons who represent those who apply isolation and repression; but by those who represent institutions like the Bar Associations, the Medical Association of Turkey (TAB), Human Right Association (IHD), Union of the Chambers of Engineers and Architects of Turkey (TMMOB) and the various association representing the families of prisoners like TAYAD, TUYAB and Tum Yargi-Sen. The prisons have to be opened for regular inspections by the independent Supervisory Committees and the necessary recommendations that are in their reports have to be implemented immediately. 5. In relation to the abolition of anti-democratic institutions and laws such as the DGMs (State Security Courts) and the Anti-Terror Law, which is not only demanded by us political prisoners but also by all democratic forces, the political prisoners and democratic forces and public opinion have to be given a guarantee regarding this. 6. The punishment of the prisoners who received severe mental and physical damage during both the hunger strike-death fast resistance in 1996 and today's Death Fast resistance and during the operations carried out in the prisons, and those who for whom there's no possibility of medical treatment in the prisons and who are very ill, has to be cancelled with the compliance of the Prosecutor of the Republic. This has to be done without there being an examination by the forensic doctors whose arbitrary and subjective diagnosis has made receiving medical treatment impossible. 7. The massacres in the prisons, beginning from the operation of 19th December 2000, and including those in Buca, Umraniye, Diyarbakir, Ulucanlar and Burdur, have to be investigated by commissions consisting of independent institutions of independent democratic mass organisations and professional chambers and also the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission. There must be guarantees that there will not be any restrictions regarding their reports and they have to be made public and those who are identified as being responsible have to be taken before the courts and punished. Our demands are fully just, legitimate, democratic and humane. Against all the lies, demagogy and distortions our demands are not unacceptable. In order to fulfil our demands, and to negotiate and to find a solution, there must be unconditional negotiations with representatives who are chosen by the prisoners by their own free will. Signed by Ercan Kartal, Cemal Cakmak, Muharrem Kursun, Haci Demirkaya, Yunus Aydemir, Can Ali Turkmen, M. Aytunc Altay, Nizamettin Do�an, Ramazan Sadiko�lu, Ziya Buyukisik, the political prisoners from the DHKP-C, TKP(ML), TKIP, TKP/ML, MLKP, TIKB, TDP, DY, DH, PKK/DCS, MLSPB trials. 14th June 2001 In the face of the situation today the basic demands immediately posed to the government are: - Immediate and unconditional end of isolation - Forced medical intervention is torture. It has to be stopped immediately. - The representatives of the political prisoners have to be recognised and the government has to start a direct dialogue immediately. The government prevents direct negotiations between the representatives of the prisoners and the authorities. It is calling the prisoners "terrorists" and showed that it wasn't even ready to apply the reforms that it has presented to the European bodies as a kind of solution. The prisoners have always seen that simple change inside a law and some reforms could not be the solution to the essential problems in prisons, which are physical and mental torture. The F-Type prisons mean total isolation both from inside and outside. The idea of such a prison system is to silence the whole opposition. The revolutionaries are the first ones to be silenced. The economic and political crisis in Turkey is reflected in all areas, mass demonstrations and countless individual actions directed against the government happen almost every day. Those who struggle for justice, democracy and independence, no matter if by legal or illegal ways, are filling Turkey's jails. They should be isolated from the people and even from each other. Nobody should know about their resistance. Everybody in the world, calling him- or herself internationalist and who is shouting for democracy, social justice and a humane way of life who wants to live in a world without fascism, racism and other kinds of discrimination should understand this struggle as its own, because the F-types are nothing else than a new form of concentration camp and the product of the policy of so-called "globalisation". http://www.tayad.com http://www.noisolation.de http://www.anatolie-info.fr.st _________________________________________________ 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] __________________________________________________
