Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest or to achieve a goal such as a policy change.

Political prisoners in Turkey

Inspired by the Irish Republicans, Turkish political prisoners developed a tradition of hunger strikes, which continues to this day. After the supression of rising civil socialist movements by a military coup in 1980, many militants as well as civil activists were imprisoned under highly inhumane conditions. In response to torture and mistreatment of political prisoners, the first hunger strike was launched in 1984, taking the lives of 4 Dev-Sol militants, Abdullah Meral, Haydar Ba?ba?, Fatih Öktülmü? and Hasan Telci.

Related Topics:
Military coup - Dev-Sol

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In the following years, socialist movements have been increasingly marginalized and moved underground. However, many militant Marxist/Leninist groups have survived. For this reason, the number of political prisoners has always been high. In 1996, when the nationalist minister of the islamist/conservative government launched a policy on segregation of political prisoners from each other, another hunger strike broke down, with the participation of several leftist militant groups. The strike lasted 69 days, took 12 lives, and the indifferent attitude of the goverment provoked a strong public protest. As a result, with the initiative of intellectuals including Ya?ar Kemal, Zülfü Livaneli, and Orhan Pamuk, a deal was achived between the goverment and prisoners. The prisoners took most of their rights back, which they recall as a victory.

Related Topics:
Nationalist minister - Islamist - Conservative - Ya?ar Kemal - Zülfü Livaneli - Orhan Pamuk

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The last wave of hunger strikes in Turkey, which has become chronical in recent years, was started against F-type prisons, which were designed for efficient segregation of political prisoners. The project was developed starting in 1997, and the strike was started on October 20, 2000, demanding F-type prisons not to be opened, by a large coalition of militant groups, this time including the Kurdish-separatist militants of PKK. The result was tragedic, on December 19, 2000, the now democratic left-extreme nationalist coalition decided to break the strike using force, which was named "Back to life" operation. The operation was faced by a well-organized resistance of prisoners, resulting in the death of 28 prisoners and 2 soldiers. Since then, both F-type prisons and related hunger strikes has become an issue of daily life. According to the organization of prisoner relatives, 101 prisoners have died and above 400 hundred have suffered from unrecoverable disease, particularly Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. The goverments have been consistently denying claims about mistreatment of prisoners, and president Ahmet Necdet Sezer has been pardoning diseased prisoners, only to be critisized by extreme-right, since many of the released militants have been caught or killed in clashes with security forces. The government maintains that 189 hunger strikers received presidential pardons since 2000.

Related Topics:
PKK - Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome - Ahmet Necdet Sezer

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