Article about the prisoners’ resistance in Austrian labour newspaper “Zeitung der Arbeit”

The Party of Labour of Austria published an article in support of the political prisoners in Turkey, who continue resistance to isolation prisons.

Link to the article: Hungerstreikende in Isolationsgefängissen der Türkei in akuter Lebensgefahr – Zeitung der Arbeit

Here’s the translation from German:

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Hunger strikers in isolation prisons in Turkey in acute danger of death

A solidarity committee for political prisoners in Turkey is making a dramatic appeal to the public. Two prisoners on hunger strike are in acute danger of death.

The Committee informs that in Turkey within the last two years, dozens of political prisoners have been forcibly transferred to so-called “well prisons of type S and Y or to high-security prisons”.

There, the prisoners are “arbitrarily and unlawfully subjected to a systematic practice of isolation, which is classified as torture according to international legal standards.” They have to spend 23 hours a day alone in a small, unhygienic cell without sufficient air and sunlight. This detention regime is not a temporary disciplinary measure, “but a form of maximum punishment over a long period of time, with the aim of physical and psychological attrition of the individual.”

Political prisoners have decided to go on hunger strike against this massive and systematic practice of torture, two of whom are in the so-called “death fast”. In Turkey, human rights organisations, members of parliament and lawyers’ associations have protested against this treatment of prisoners, condemning them as “death row”. With their hunger strike, the prisoners want to be transferred back to normal prisons. Even if this demand is supported, much more attention is needed from the international public in view of the pressure and repression that is currently being inflicted on the entire political opposition in Turkey. Currently, three of the twelve prisoners currently on indefinite hunger strike are in serious condition, two of them in acute danger of death.

Serkan Onur Yilmaz has already been in a “death fast” for 344 days (as of October 20). He has managed to ensure that he is no longer in an isolation prison, but he continues the fast because he wants his eight fellow prisoners to be freed from this terrible detention system and transferred. He is in a very serious state of health, can no longer stand up on his own, suffers from shortness of breath, muscle cramps and pain and it is unclear how long he can keep it up.

Fikret Akar has been on an indefinite hunger strike for 205 days. He is being held in the Karatape High Security Prison in Corlu. He is also already in a life-threatening condition and urgently needs help.

The Solidarity Committee requests that protest emails be sent to the Ministry of Justice of Turkey and to the management of the prison where Fikrat Akar is staying. Ministry of Justice: info@adalet.gov.tr / Prison where Fikret Akar is detained: karatepe.ygkcik@adalet.gov.tr

There is also a petition for the abolition of isolation prisons in Turkey: 

Petition · STOP TORTURE IN TURKEY’S S,R,Y-TYPE ISOLATION PRISONS – https://www.change.org/p/stop-torture-in-turkey-s-s-r-y-type-isolation-prisons?source_location=petition_update_page