AFP. 2 January 2002. Turkish prison hunger strike death brings toll to 43.
ISTANBUL -- The death of a prisoner on hunger strike in Turkey on Wednesday brought the toll since the action was launched by mainly left-wing prisoners and their supporters to 43, human rights groups said. Ali Camyar, 31, died from tuberculosis after 265 days on hunger strike, which had weakened his immune system, said the Turkish Association of Human Rights. He had been in jail since 1996 after being convicted of being a member of a banned extreme left-wing organisation, the Turkish Communist Revolutionary Union. The hunger strike was launched throughout Turkish prisons by mainly left-wing extremist inmates in October 2000 against the introduction of new prisons with tighter security. Protestors claim that new prison cells for up to three people, which replace large halls housing 60, increase social alienation and leave prisoners more vulnerable to attack. As well as 43 deaths directly due to the strike, the movement saw 30 prisoners killed during a combined assault by police in December 2000 on a number of prisons in a bid to re-establish state contol in the jails. Two police officers were also killed in the pitched battles between prisoners and the forces of law and order which followed. In November 2001, four more people died when police raided houses in Istanbul which were sheltering hunger strikers and four prisoners burnt themselves to death in protest against the raid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews