Republican News · Thursday 28 March 2002

other hunger striker dies

The death toll in a long-standing hunger strike by prisoners protesting at controversial jail reforms in Turkey reached 49 on Thursday, 21 March, with the death of another inmate, a human rights activist.

Tuncay Yildirim, 30, died in a house in the western city of Izmir where he was staying after being granted a six-month release from jail on health grounds on 14 February 14, a spokeswoman for the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) said.

Yildirim started fasting in July last year while serving a 12-year jail sentence for membership of a far-left underground group and was briefly hospitalised in January this year, she added.

Prisoners launched their hunger strike in October 2000 to protest against the use of high-security prisons, in which cells for one to three people replaced large dormitories for dozens of inmates.

Backed by rights groups, protesters say the new arrangement leaves them socially isolated and more vulnerable to torture and maltreatment.

The death toll from the strike includes both prisoners and outside supporters of the movement. Four prisoners burned themselves to death in support of the strike and another four people died last November in a police raid on an Istanbul house occupied by hunger strikers.

A picket was held outside the Turkish embassy in Dublin on Monday, 25 March, to protest this latest death.