Cumhuriyet January 19, 2002
The Minister of Justice has given up waiting until the F-type actions are finished. The circular on prisoners having conversations has been published ANKARA (Cumhuriyet office) - The "circular on conversations" which Minister of Justice Hikmet Sami Turk announced should be sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office as soon as the death fast actions in the F-type prisons are finished, was published yesterday. According to the circular, a maximum of 10 prisoners who are chosen by a "selection commission" will be enabled to come together in defined areas for a conversation five hours a week. The prisoners who want to converse have to at least participate in improvement sessions, or in education, sports, gaining a profession or in the workshops. But the commission will define who is able to come together for conversations. Therefore not everybody can come together in the defined areas. The Minister of Justice Turk gave information about his Ministry's own proposal at a press conference last week, while refusing the Bar Association's proposal for "three doors three locks" aimed at ending the death fast actions in the F-type prisons. Turk had announced that they had prepared a circular which should enable the prisoners to come together once a week for five hours, and that he's going to publish this circular as soon as the actions are finished. But as a "sign of good will" Hikmet Sami Turk published the circular yesterday without waiting for the actions to come to an end. Huseyin Akgul of the Human Rights Examination Commission of the Turkish National Assembly, met the chairman of the Human Rights Association Husnu Ondul, chairman of the TMMOB (Chambers of Architects and Engineers of Turkey) Kaya Guvenc, the president of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation Yavuz Onen and the vice-president of the Medical Associations of Turkey Metin Bakkalci in his office yesterday. In his statement after the meeting which lasted for around one hour, Akgul revealed that the death fasts have to end without fail. Akgul noted that they had decided, together with civil society organisations, to cooperate in undertaking all possible attempts to start a new period at the point that has been reached.
