Turkish hunger strike - Force feeding and more deaths
Tony O'Hara, former blanket man and brother of 1981 hunger striker Patsy O'Hara
Ugur Turkmen is the latest addition to the list of 19 political prisoners and four relatives who have died as a result of the hunger strike protest against prison conditions in Turkey. After being released from Sincan F-type prison on 5 January 2001, Ugur Turkmen continued his death fast in his home at Mersin. He died on Sunday, 27 May 2001, on his 204th day of hunger strike. Nearly 300 inmates and family members are still fasting in an attempt to force the government to reconsider its policy of isolating political prisoners in Turkey. Many of the fasting prisoners are being force fed. It has been reported that around 53 political prisoners have already suffered irreversible brain damage.
The similarities between this protest in Turkey and the Irish hunger strike in 1981 are striking, which explains the Irish visit of Gurkan Gur of the Committee for Struggle Against Torture Through Isolation (IKM) last week. He spoke at a public meeting in Dublin about the situation in the prisons and on the streets of Turkey during a meeting hosted by Des Bonass (AT&GWU) and attended by former hunger striker John Nixon and blanket men Séanna Breathnach and Tony O'Hara. Photographs covered the walls of men and women now dead as a consequence of the protests against the prison regime imposed by Turkey on its political prisoners.
``When you look at the reasons why the hunger strike is taking place in Turkey, you find a lot of connections with the struggle in Irish prisons,'' said Gur. ``There was political status in Ireland and prison uniforms in Turkey. Then H Blocks in Ireland, F-type prisons in Turkey: the state is trying to force the surrender of the revolutionary prisoners and all those who oppose the Turkish regime. On the other hand, political prisoners are defending what they believe is right.''
The prisoners have been on hunger strike since 20 October last, anticipating government plans for their transfer to so-called ``F-type'' high security prisons - replacing communal ward-type cells where prisoners enjoyed free association with high security prisons focused on isolating prisoners.
``Ill-treatment and torture are widespread in Turkish police stations and gendarmeries, but are comparatively rarely reported from Turkish prisons,'' reported the US-based human rights organisation Human Right Watch in 1999. ``No doubt this is partly explained by the open nature of the ward system since, in Human Rights Watch's experience worldwide, ill-treatment and torture tend to flourish in conditions of secrecy''. In its report on a visit to Turkey between 27 February and 3 March 1999, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) made the general comment that a high security facility ``brings with it a greater risk of inhuman treatment than is the case with the average prisoner''.
On 19 December, 30 prisoners and two police were killed when 10,000 armed soldiers entered 20 Turkish prisons to break up non-violent protests being carried out by inmates and transfer them to the newly constructed F-type prisons. ``Do not forget that when the operation started these people had already spent 62 days fasting,'' said Gur. ``Most of the people killed when the security forces stormed the jails died trying to protect the comrades who were fasting.''
Turkish security forces' actions were severely criticised by the Council of Europe on 16 March. The Council's anti-torture committee expressed grave concerns about their actions at a women's detention centre where security forces set fire to a dormitory and stood by as women prisoners burnt to death. ``The methods employed by the security forces were not in all cases proportional to the difficulties faced'', says the report.
The Justice Ministry then began transferring inmates from the raided prisons to the first of the F-type prisons, breaking previous public commitments that they would not take this step precipitately.
At the four F-type prisons currently in operation - Edirne, Kandira, Sincan and Tekirdag - prisoners may leave their cells only once a week if a member of their immediate family visits. Otherwise, they are held permanently either in single-person or three-person cells in what has been termed ``small group isolation''. They are not allowed any kind of communal activity.
The Turkish establishment is using the excuse of the protest to further curtail the prisoners' rights. ``They have not seen each other since 19 December and most have not seen their families. A minority of the political prisoners managed to see their families for 5 or 10 minutes. Normally it should be one hour, but because of obstructions like searching visitors three or four times, again they managed to reach the cubicle there are generaly only five minutes left,'' explains Gur.
Gur also described in detail the brutality of prison staff against prisoners. On 23 April, guards beat Yunus …zgŸr, on hunger strike since his transfer to Sincan F-type Prison, when he was unable to rise to his feet for roll call, according to his father. He was subsequently hospitalised for several days, apparently for injuries resulting from the beating, and has now been returned to Sincan Prison.
Authorities call the protesters ``terrorists'' and insist the new jails, with modern washrooms, kitchens and courtyards, meet the standards of the EU, which Turkey wants to join. But this protest is not about prison facilities, but prison conditions.
``Turkey said that the old prisons were not hygienic as prisoners stayed together in the same cell, but what they want to impose now is to isolate prisoners from each other and the rest of the world,'' said Gur. ``There is no way a human being can accept such a thing. This is our battle line - either F-type prisons are closed down or we all will die. This is what our prisoners have said.''
The Turkish government, as the British government did in the 1980s, has largely ignored the protesters' petitions. The Turkish establishment is very much accustomed to Western criticism of its human rights record -criticisms that always fail to result in sanctions. Turkey has also shrugged off calls from international groups, including the Council of Europe, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, to end the seven-month prison crisis. Although the Turkish Parliament amended an ``anti-terrorism law'' on 1 May to allow some political prisoners access to communal areas, Human Rights Watch, Jonathan Sugden says inmates' families' report that no prisoners have yet benefited from the new rule and the lockdown continues.
Turkish Human Rights groups have condemned how the Turkish government is force-feeding and drugging some 37 hunger strikers to keep the number of deaths low and to limit international embarrassment. ``So far, 37 of our prisoners have lost their memories completely. They cannot remember they were in prison, they cannot remember their families. Some of them think they are in hospital because they had to undergo some surgery,'' says Gur.
The Turkish government has tried to maintain a media blackout on the crisis. Journalists and human rights defenders who have criticised the prison transfers and reported on the progress of the hunger strikes have been ill-treated, detained, imprisoned, and prosecuted. On 27 April the Istanbul-based Voice of Anatolia radio station was shut down for three months because it had broadcast a programme on the prison crisis. Branches of the Turkish Human Rights Association have been closed down, and officials charged with ``supporting illegal armed groups.'' Prisoners' relatives have also been persecuted and subjected to routine humiliation during prison visits.
But the political prisoners and their relatives have made clear that they will not abandon their protest until F-type prisons are closed. ``There will be a moment when not a single prisoner will be left in an F-Type prison alive,'' said Gulkan Gur. ``When they started the fast on 20 October 2000 they said `no matter what, we will not go to those cells alive'. They were attacked, tortured and taken to the F-Type prisons, but by continuing their resistance they are keeping their word and saying that they are ready to die because they will not accept their prisons or inhuman treatment. Our struggle will continue until victory. We have a slogan, which says that we are right and we will win''.
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