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Turkish Prison Death Toll Is 22
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - Two prisoners starved to death on Monday, bringing to 22 the number of inmates and relatives that have died in a hunger strike protesting Turkey's new maximum security prisons.
Cafer Tayyar Bektas, a member of a banned leftist group who fasted since the strike began exactly 200 days ago, died in an Ankara hospital, Turkey's Human Rights Association said.
A second prisoner from a different banned leftist group, Huseyin Kayaci, died in a hospital in the western city of Izmir after 148 days without solid food, the group said.
About 250 inmates and some of their relatives are fasting. They have been taking sugared and salted water with vitamins to prolong their fast.
The hunger strike began as a protest by political prisoners against their transfer from large, dormitory-style prison wards to new maximum security prisons with one or three-person cells. Clashes broke out in December, when security forces transfer Inmates said the new structure leaves them isolated and vulnerable to beatings from guards. The government said that the old prison system allowed wards of up to 100 prisoners to be used as training camps by Kurdish, Islamic and leftist groups.
Turkey's parliament passed a law last week allowing inmates in the small cells to take part in some collective activities. The government has also drawn up plans to allow civilian inspection of prison conditions.
But human rights groups, including Amnesty International, say the
changes don't go far enough. Prisoners support group Ozgur Tayad
has said the fast will continue until the government meets the
strikers demands for 18-person wards and the abolition of anti-terror
laws.
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