Turkish Political Prisoner Hungerst

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkish Political Prisoner Hungerstrike Over, But More Deaths Likely

Turkey's Hunger Strikes End But More Deaths Likely

Ankara, Turkey (AP - July 28, 1996) A day after accepting
government concessions to end their 69-day hunger strike, some
inmates in critical condition Sunday were not expected to live.
     Shortly after justice officials announced they had reached a
deal to end the fasting Saturday night, another prisoner died,
bringing the death toll to 12. Seven of the 170 inmates who were
hospitalized early Sunday were in intensive care, the health
ministry said.
     "It is much too late to save them", said lawyer Behic Asci,
who represented some of the protesting inmates.
     Some 2,000 leftist inmates launched the hunger strike in May
to protest harsh inmate transfers, inadequate medical care and
restrictions on visitation rights for political prisoners. About
4,000 Kurdish inmates joined them in solidarity last week.
     After holding firm against the strikers' demands for more
than two months, Turkey's month-old Islam-oriented government
finally agreed to send 102 political prisoners to jails closer to
the site of their trials, negotiators said.
     But some predicted Sunday that Turkish prisons may be
convulsed by similar protests in the future unless the government
radically overhauls the justice system, including speeding up
trial delays and improving prison conditions.
     Some suspected terrorists wait years for their cases to come
to trial; their wait time in jail sometimes exceeds their
sentences.
     "Without judiciary reform, the government will be vulnerable
to these kind of problems forever", said lawyer Ali Dizdar.
     Though Turkey has suffered a year of political instability,
the hunger strike was Premier Necmettin Erbakan's first crisis.
The government has expressed concern that the incident might
further taint its human rights record in the West's eyes.
     The hunger strikers were either on trial or convicted of
being members in outlawed leftist groups or involved in the
country's Kurdish uprising. Some had taken part in murders or
bombings.
     Such links to terrorism limited public sympathy for the
hunger strikers.
     Human rights activists, lawyers and commentators Sunday
blamed Justice Minister Sevket Kazan for waiting too long to
offer the concessions that ended the strike.
     "You are to be blamed for the deaths, Mr. Minister", wrote
columnist Can Dundar in the liberal newspaper Yeni Yuzyil. "Your
abstinence and bullying delayed an accord for such a long time
and let all these people die."