Republican News · Thursday 5 September 2002

Death of Fatma Tokay (Kose)

The torture of forced medical intervention has taken another life in the Turkish death fast. Fatma Tokay (Kose) lost her life in Ankara Numune Hospital on the 400th day of hunger strike, after forcible medical intervention was carried out on the 395th day of her death fast. She becomes the 56th death faster to succumb to date.

Born on 14 September 1967 in the mining village of Engen in Elazig Province (in eastern Turkey), she was imprisoned as a DHKP-C Trial prisoner on 5 June 1994, while in the final year of studying in Hacetepe University's history department. She was sentenced to seventeen and a half years.

She was in Canakkale Prison at the time of the December 2000 massacre, when Turkish forces stormed the wings of political prisoners. Later, she took part in the sixth Death Fast Team in Kutahya E-Type Prison. When her situation worsened she was moved to Kutahya State Hospital and from there to Ankara Numune Hospital, where Fatma Tokay (Kose) lost her life on the 400th day as a result of the torture of forcible medical intervention.