Hunger Strikes in Turkish Prisons: Information Note Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Prison Committee 6 April 2017
The hunger strike protests of political prisoners in Turkish penitentiary institutions have reached a critical point. The protest was initiated in Izmir Şakran High Security Prison on 15 February 2017 to draw attention to gross human rights violations and inhumane living conditions in prisons, the isolation on the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, and Erdoğan-AKP government’s renewed politics violence and war in the Kurdish issue. It soon spread to other prisons across Turkey.
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A Turkish Gendarmerie (Jandarma) officer stands guard outside the Erdine Prison (background) after a delegation from the Party of European Socialists (PES) visited the leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Party, Selahattin Demirtas, imprisoned in Edirne, on Nov. 21, 2016. (photo by GETTY/Yasin Akgul)