IRSP: Free All Poliltical Prisoners in Turkey, No More Hunger Strike Deaths

[Danielle Ni Dhighe <nidhighe@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Press Statement ­ Press Statement ­ Press Statement

Irish Republican Socialist Party
17 April 2001

IRSP: Free All Poliltical Prisoners in Turkey, No More Hunger Strike Deaths

As we in Ireland engage in the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary
of the 1981 hunger strike which claimed the lives of three heroic INLA and
seven IRA volunteers, a hunger strike by political prisoners has claimed
two more lives. The hunger strike, now having lasted more than 150 days,
began late last year to protest the planned transfer of the political
prisoners to 'F-type' prisons. Much as was the case with Irish republican
and republican socialist prisoners of war when they held political status,
the Turkish prisoners maintained their own organisation and command
structures within the prisons they had been held in. The 'F-type prisons
provide isolation cells intended to destroy the political prisoners
collectives. In response to the two most recent deaths on hunger strike, a
spokesperson for the Irish Republican Socialist Party's International
Department Secretariat had the following to say.

"We in the IRSP recognise that when prisoners take the decision to embark
on a hunger strike to the death, they do so in the face of government
intransigence, in defense of deeply held convictions, and in support of
just and reasonable demands. With our Easter commemorations just concluded,
the memory of our own martyred comrades from 1981--Patsy O Hara, Kevin
Lynch, and Mickey Devine--is fresh in our minds and so we do not simply
have solidarity with the prisoners and their comrades in Turkey, we have
genuine empathy as well.

"During the armed attacks on the political prisoners in Turkey, in
December, undertaken to force these prisoners into 'F-type' prisons, 30
prisoners were murdered by the Turkish state, with many more were injured
and tortured. Despite this, the hunger strike has continued. The European
Union and the United States, so swift to lecture certain other nations
about human rights, have remained silent in the face of these outrages,
making plain that the only rights they are concerned with are the right to
profits and the right to rely on Turkey to provide NATO with strategic
bases in the Middle East.

"On Easter we read out our own Roll of Honour, paying homage to those who
gave their lives in the struggle for Irish national liberation and
socialism. It is with equal reverence that we now list the heroic political
prisoners who have died in Turkey on hunger strike:

Bulent Coban - DHKP-C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front);
Adil Kaplan - TKP(ML) (Communist Party Of Turkey Marxist-Leninist);
Fatma Ersoy - DHKP-C;
Abdullah Bozdag - DHKP-C;
Erol Evcil - DHKP-C;
Nergiz Gulmez - TKP(ML);
Celal Alpay - TKP(ML); and
Tuncay Gunel - TIKB (Union Of Revolutionary Communists Of Turkey)."

In conclusion, the IRSP spokesperson said:

"We call upon the Turkish government to release all Turkish and Kurdish
political prisoners it now has incarcerated. Barring that, we hope all
those who support human rights and justice to join with us in calling for
recognition of these prisoners as political prisoners and for them to be
given back the ability to create their own organisation within the prisons,
the granting of their just demands, and for them to be treated with the
dignity and humanity that is due to all political prisoners."

ENDS