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| Turkey Prison Hunger Strike Death Toll Reaches 15 |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 04/27/2001 |
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A young Turkish woman prisoner died last weekend from the effects of a months-long ``death fast'' aimed at blocking controversial jail reforms, bringing the toll from the fasts to 15, state-run Anatolian news agency said. The agency said the 24 year-old prisoner died at an Istanbul hospital where she had been brought for medical treatment. She weighed 64 pounds after months on the fast, during which she consumed little except sugared water and vitamins. Surucu was one of some 800 inmates and relatives of prisoners protesting plans to move mainly leftist inmates from communal wards to small cells. They fear the new arrangements will make them more vulnerable to abuse by their jailers. Twelve other prisoners and two relatives of convicts who joined the fast have died in recent weeks. Human rights groups say dozens of others taking part in the hunger strikes are now very close to death. Security forces raided 20 prisons across the country last December to carry out the transfers and crush mass hunger strike protests against them. At least 30 inmates and two soldiers died before the jails were subdued. Several hundred prisoners, including top figures in the outlawed leftist groups Turkey says are orchestrating the fasts, were moved to new jails that house only one or two prisoners in a cell, rather than over 100 in a ward. Turkish officials defend the changes as necessary to ease overcrowding and break the grip of far-left groups which they hold responsible for dozens of attacks on police and security targets over the past decade. |
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