ANKARA – A Turkish prisoner died on Friday of the effects of a hunger strike in protest at jail reforms and doctors resuscitated a second hunger striking inmate with a heart massage, a human rights official said.
ANKARA – A Turkish prisoner died on Friday of the effects of a hunger strike in protest at jail reforms and doctors resuscitated a second hunger striking inmate with a heart massage, a human rights official said.
Prisoner Erol Evcil’s death, the 10th in the latest wave of Turkish jail hunger strike deaths, came hours before human rights activists warned that
death was imminent for 60 prisoners among some 1,000 other leftist inmates who began hunger strike protests several months ago against new cell-type high-security prisons.
Prisoners and rights activists fiercely oppose the new jails saying they increase the risk of official brutality in jails. Allegations of rights abuses in Turkey are rife, particularly in the cell-style jails.
Prisoners consume vitamins and sugared water to extend the period of their protest.
The spokesman for the president, Metin Yalman, said inmates should not expect any gains from such protests.
The government has refused to bargain with the inmates and said the cell-style jails are necessary to break the influence illegal groups, many of
them leftist, enjoy in crowded dormitory-type prisons.
More than 30 prisoners and two soldiers died in December when security forces raided prisons to halt the hunger strike and to transfer inmates to the new prisons.
[ See also: U.S. Funded Repression Sparks Prison Hunger Strike in Turkey
and Turkish Police Launch Deadly Assault On Fasting Prisoners ]
Author: Elif Unal
News Service: Reuters
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