Turkey: DHKC Faster Dies

Date: 15th Sept '01

Name: J

Country: Scotland

Friday September 14 1:52 PM ET

Turkish Prisoner Dies in Hunger Strike
==========================

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A former prisoner starved to death Friday,
becoming the 34th hunger striker to die in a months-long protest by
inmates opposed to Turkey's new high-security prison system.

Umus Sahingoz, a 32-year old member of the banned Marxist group
Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front died Friday in a house in
an Istanbul suburb where about a dozen other left-wing militants are
also fasting, the prisoner support group Ozgur Tayad said.

Sahingoz had served time at an Istanbul prison for breaching Turkey's
anti-terrorism laws but was released in July.

The prisoners and their supporters began fasting last year to protest
the prisoners' transfers from large, dormitory-style wards to prisons
with one- or three-person cells. Prisoners say the new prison system
leaves them isolated and vulnerable to beatings from guards.

Clashes broke out in December when security forces transferred inmates
to the new prisons. Thirty inmates and two soldiers died in the clashes.

--
Press Agency Ozgurluk
In Support of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey
http://www.ozgurluk.org

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