From: Press Agency Ozgurluk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 22:17:24 +0200 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Ozgurluk] Guardian: Two Turks Die In Hunger Strike Two Turks Die In Hunger Strike Thursday September 27, 2001 8:00 PM ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Two protesters starved Thursday, raising the number of deaths in a hunger strike by leftist militants against Turkey's new high-security prisons to 38. Zeynep Arikan, 33, died in a house in an Istanbul suburb where some 10 other militants are also fasting, the prisoner support group Ozgur Tayad said. Ali Riza Demir, 27, another hunger striker, died hours later. Both had consumed only sugared or salted water for months. The men were members of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, a banned Marxist group, and were recently released from prison because of their deteriorating health. There is little public sympathy for the hunger strikers, most of whom are convicted members of fringe leftist organizations that have claimed responsibility for numerous bombings and assassinations since 1970s. Two weeks ago, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack close to Istanbul's main square that killed the bomber, two policemen and an Australian woman. The group said the attack was in support of the prisoners. Some 200 prisoners and their supporters started fasting last year after prison authorities transferred inmates from large, dormitory-style wards to prisons with one- or three-person cells. Clashes broke out in December, when security forces began transferring inmates to the new prisons. Thirty inmates and two soldiers were killed in the fighting. Prisoners claim the new system leaves them isolated and vulnerable to beatings from guards. Authorities say prisoners ran the wards as indoctrination centers and have ruled out any return to the ward system. -- 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] __________________________________________________
