------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the May 10, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- TURKEY "DEATH FAST": POLITICAL PRISONERS GIVE THEIR LIVES TO EXPOSE STATE REPRESSION By Andy McInerney To any outside observer, the situation in Turkish jails is nothing short of tragic. Every day for the past several weeks, another political prisoner dies as part of a six- month "death fast": a hunger strike to the death. The tragedy of the situation, though, is dwarfed by the revolutionary determination and courage of the over 2,000 prisoners who are engaged in this life-and-death struggle against the U.S.-backed Turkish state. With every new martyr, the prisoners inspire new resistance to the brutal conditions in Turkey's political prisons. Last Oct. 20, prisoners from the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party--Front (DHKP-C), the Communist Party of Turkey-Marxist-Leninist (TKP-ML), and the Communist Workers Party of Turkey (TKIP) announced that they would wage the hunger strike to fight against attempts to open so-called "F- style" prisons. In the F-style prisons, political prisoners are kept in isolation and subjected to torture and psychological warfare. As of April 28, 59 prisoners and their supporters had died in the struggle. The call by the three organizations won wide support among Turkey's over 10,000 political prisoners. By Nov. 19, hundreds of hunger strikers committed themselves to a death fast, including members of other leftist parties and Kur dish national liberation fighters from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Family members and other solidarity activists have also joined in the death fast. Alarmed by the widening support for the death fast, the Turkish government launched a brutal attack on the prisoners in December. Twenty-eight revolutionaries were massacred in that attack. The central demands of the hunger strike have been an end to the F-style prisons, the overturning of "anti-terrorist" laws that outlaw political activity by the left, and the punishment of those who have massacred prisoners. The prisoners' struggle has won solidarity around the world. On April 27, 500 people marched to the Turkish Embassy in Athens, Greece, in support of the death fast. The same day, members of the Committee for Struggle Against Torture through Isolation (IKM) seized the office of Amnesty International in London. The protesters charged that the human rights group had not been forceful enough in condemning the Turkish prison regime. "So far, 28 people were killed by the security forces and 30 people died during the death fast," an IKM press release stated. "We demand that Amnesty International launch a campaign for this issue. People are dying: they should act now!" The determination of the prisoners has also caused a few European governments to express some concern. On April 24, the Council of Europe called the F-style prisons "not acceptable" and said they should be "ended quickly." The Irish government issued a statement on April 25 urging the Turkish government to resolve the issue, saying that it "deeply regretted the deaths resulting from hunger strikes." The hunger strike undoubtedly has wide resonance among the Irish people, who remember the heroic 1981 hunger strike that led to the deaths of Bobby Sands and nine of his Irish nationalist comrades fighting against the prisons of the British occupiers. The F-style prisons, never before implemented in Turkey, are modeled on "super-max" prisons in the United States and Europe. These advanced control units have been used for decades in the imperialist countries to isolate and repress political prisoners. The stakes of the death fast are high. The revolutionaries have put their lives on the line. At the same time, the Turkish government needs to increase the level of repression against the left as it imposes austerity measures on the country's working class that are dictated by the International Monetary Fund. The Turkish government is trying to isolate the voices of the political prisoners from the millions of workers who are already pouring into the streets against the IMF. Its greatest fear--and the greatest fear of its imperialist masters in Washington and Berlin--is that the revolutionary determination and heroism of the political prisoners will fuse with the social power of Turkey's working class. Like Heracles channeling a river to clean the Augean stables in Greek mythology, that fusion would threaten to wipe away not only Turkey's repressive prison regime, but also the imperialist domination that lies at the root of that repression. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
