BY ZANNY BEGG
As of January 20, the death toll of the hunger strike in Turkey's prisons reached 45 with two more prisoners dying in the first weeks of the New Year. More then 300 prisoners — mainly jailed for political offences — and their families have been on death fasts, some for up to 100 days, to protest being kept in isolation cells in "F-type" high security prisons. As many as 60 people are close to death.
Four F-type prisons are in operation, in which prisoners are held in single isolation, or three-person isolation cells, only being allowed out once a week when a member of their immediate family visits.
The hunger strikers also object to the F-type prisons because of fear of ill treatment by warders. Torture, beatings and abuse have been a persistent problem in Turkey's police stations and prisons. Deaths and disappearances at the hands of the police are common.
Hundreds of prisoners staged a peaceful protest against their removal to the F-type prison complexes in December 2000. Tens of thousands of armed soldiers entered more than 20 prisons to break the protest. Thirty inmates were killed in these raids and hundreds more complained of beatings, torture and injury.
The government has refused to agree to the demands of the prisoners. It has acted to silence those who support the aims of the protesters. Journalists who have covered the story have been detained, ill treated and even imprisoned. Human rights groups have been targeted and branches of the Turkish Human Rights Association have been closed down.
A glimmer of hope came on January 7 when Turkey's justice minister Hikmet Sami Turk said that inmates of F-type prisons may be allowed to open their cell doors and get together. However, hopes faded when he added that this may be outlawed by the "anti-terrorist" laws under which the inmates were arrested.
To show your support for the hunger strikers go to the Human Rights Watch web site at <http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/turkey/prison>.
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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