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(Forwarding: My comrades are still fighting on!) Turkey lays siege to two jails, toll rises By Steve Bryant ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish security forces laid siege to two prisons on Wednesday for the second day running as the justice minister urged protesting prisoners to end armed resistance to troops which has so far cost at least 19 lives. Paramilitary police raided Istanbul's Umraniye prison before dawn, accompanied by fire-engines, a bulldozer and armoured cars. A few hours later they moved on Canakkale prison in western Turkey where television pictures showed they had knocked huge holes in the walls of the prison blocks to gain entrance. "There is strong resistance at both prisons," an Interior Ministry official told Reuters. "The operation was re-started from where it left off yesterday evening." Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk, speaking to reporters in Ankara, called on the inmates of both jails to give up and put an end to the bloodiest clashes in years in Turkey's prisons, where prisoners often have more control than their jailers. "This meaningless resistance at Umraniye and Canakkale has to stop," he said. "I am calling on them once again to end their resistance. It leads nowhere." Turk said that two paramilitary gendarmes had died along with at least 16 prisoners, most of whom burned themselves to death, when security forces stormed 20 prisons on Tuesday to end hunger strikes aimed at blocking the transfer of prisoners to small cells from the large dormitories they now occupy. Another 78 prisoners had been injured in the raids. Anatolia news agency reported a 17th prisoner had died of burns in Ankara's Numune hospital on Wednesday. Paramilitary police armed with gas grenades and backed by helicopters struck early on Tuesday, moving in after weeks of vain attempts to bring a peaceful end to the hunger strikes. At least 12 inmates died at Istanbul's Bayrampasa prison, where officials said the clouds of teargas used in Tuesday's raid delayed a full search of the jail for many hours. By Tuesday night, security forces had taken control of most of the prisons, with only Umraniye and Canakkale holding out. The security operation was slammed by Greece, Turkey's long-time rival and critic, and the European Commission also expressed concern. "We are worried," said Jean-Christophe Filori, spokesman for EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenther Verheugen. "We expressed our worries yesterday and once again we call on all parties to stop the violence in order to come to a pacific outcome of this conflict," Filori said. Turkey is a candidate for EU membership. ANGER IN STREETS, CAUTION WARNED The action sparked angry demonstrations in Istanbul and Ankara, where protesters remained on the streets until late on Tuesday, clashing with police and setting alight a police car. Prison officials say the transfer of inmates to smaller cells is necessary to break the grip of organised crime gangs, extreme leftists, Kurdish separatists and militant Islamists. Many of those involved in the prison protests were jailed for links to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, a militant urban guerrilla group that police said in August planned a bomb attack on a military airbase hosting U.S. and British air patrols over northern Iraq. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said the seizure of the leftists' jail dormitories would stop the group's leaders directing other actions. But he warned of possible retaliation by leftist groups at large in major cities. "Of course there could be provocations; we've got to act very cautiously," Ecevit told reporters in Ankara. "The important thing is that a major terrorist nest has been wiped out, and that is an important success." The protesters say the small cells will make them more vulnerable to abuse by jailers. They are demanding that the plans be scrapped and sections of strict anti-terrorism laws under which many of them were jailed be repealed. Turk said the government would not back down from plans to transfer prisoners to small "F-Type" cells, adding that damage from the raids had already led him to transfer nearly 500 prisoners to various facilities with the new cells. "With the new developments...we have no choice but to open some of the F-Type jails," he said. Turk said he respected the right to criticise the raids, dubbed "Operation Return to Life", but defended them as necessary to rescue hundreds of prisoners with weakening health under the hunger strikes. He said 821 protesters, 187 of whom had been on a "death fast" in which they consumed only sugared water for some 60 days, had been taken to hospital but that some of them were refusing to accept medical treatment. "It's a policy these groups have of wiping out their own members. We want these youths to give that up." _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
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