Prison Resistance In Kurdistan And

[kurd-l at burn.UCSD.EDU]

Reply-To: kurd-l at burn.UCSD.EDU
From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>
Subject: Prison Resistance In Kurdistan And Turkey

(Reprinted from Arm The Spirit #17)

Prison Resistance In Kurdistan And Turkey

The following is a compilation of information regarding the
resistance of political prisoners from the PKK as well as members
of Turkish revolutionary organizations such as Devrimci Sol. Due to
the difficulties of receiving information about the struggles of
political prisoners in Turkish prisons we have not been able to
follow up on the situation of the various hungerstrikes and the
current conditions in the Turkish prisons. We hope to have more
information in our next magazine.

     In April 1994, a trial-boycott was launched by PKK-prisoners
in Diyarbakir prison. The action spread and was supported by many
attorneys, as well as prisoners from the following organizations:
TIKB, TDKP, TKP/ML, THKP/C, HDO, Direnis Hareketi, Devrimci Sol,
TDP, DY, TKEP/L, TKP/ML-Hareketi, TKIH, HKG, Ekim, and Kawa. More
and more organizations began to support the action, which was
designed to build solidarity and to deny legitimacy to the Turkish
judicial system.
     Throughout all of Kurdistan and Turkey, political prisoners
launched a massive campaign of resistance. In response to political
disturbances primarily organized by PKK-prisoners, the special
prison in Antep was completely cleared out and all 200 political
prisoners were split up and redistributed to more than a dozen
different prisons.
     In Nazilli, 3 PKK-prisoners who were tortured in a prison in
Buca and then transferred to Nazilli for refusing to renounce their
membership in the PKK went on hungerstrike to demand a retransfer
back to Buca.
     By mid-June, prisoners from Devrimci Sol and the organization
TIKKO had been on hungerstrike in Kayseri for over a month, and
several supporters and family members had started a solidarity
hungerstrike as well. Devrimci Sol prisoners in Canakkale had also
started a solidarity hungerstrike on June 9.
     In Urfa, several women PKK-prisoners had been continuing their
hungerstrike, and prison officials would not allow family members
to visit the women. In Sakarya, 6 women protesting deplorable
prison conditions, supported by women PKK-prisoners, had been on
hungerstrike for more than 50 days. Their health was very fragile,
and all the women were threatened with solitary confinement if they
do not stop their action.
     In Elbistan, approximately 200 PKK-prisoners had started
death-fasts. Other hungerstrikes had been reported in Yozgat and
Erzurum.
     The hungerstrikes launched by imprisoned PKK and Devrimci Sol
guerrillas continued to spread throughout prisons in Turkey and
Kurdistan. At the beginning of August 1994, at least 178 PKK and
Devrimci Sol prisoners were on hungerstrike to demand better prison
conditions. If their demands were not met, the prisoners vowed to
continue their action indefinitely. At that point 8 prisoners had
been hospitalized due to effects of the hungerstrike.
     On January 20, 1995, Suleyman Ongun from Cizre died from
wounds he received when state security forces attacked 300 PKK-
prisoners in Diyarbakir on April 10, 1994. Suleyman Ongun was one
of 80 wounded prisoners who were forcibly transferred to Antep
following the assault on the prison. There, he was denied medical
treatment. The spokespersons for the PKK-prisoners in Antep, Mahmut
Inal and Galip Tas, and the chairperson of the Antep branch of the
human rights association IHD, Iman Ozkarat, blamed the Turkish
justice ministry and prison officials for Suleyman Ongun's death.
On January 21, political prisoners in Antep launched an indefinite
hungerstrike to protest the prison's calculated murder by means of
denying medical treatment.
     Sadrettin Aydinlik, a PKK-prisoner who has been detained in
Bayrampasa prison in Istanbul for 11 years, has issued a complaint
to the medical chamber in Istanbul because he has been denied
cardiology treatment while in prison. Aydinlik has been in prison
for 11 years and has serious heart trouble. So far, prison
officials and the justice ministry have ignored his requests for
medical treatment.
     Political prisoners in Buca and Aydin launched a hungerstrike
on December 21, 1994. 10 of them are now in bad health.
     Since January 12, 1995, 20 families of political prisoners in
Buca and Aydin have been on a solidarity hungerstrike. Members of
the SKK (Izmir Anti-War Association) joined the hungerstrike for
one day as well. Political prisoners in Ceyhan, Canakkale, Cankiri,
Nevsehir, Amasya, Iskenderun, and Ankara have also started a
solidarity hungerstrike.
     A rally in support of the hungerstrikers outside of Buca
prison on January 23 was attacked by police. A 60-year-old woman
and her 32-year-old daughter were injured.
     On day 43 of the hungerstrike, relatives of the prisoners
blockaded the road to Buca prison. Security forces attacked the
demonstration and wounded several people.
     The HADEP chairperson in Izmir, RA Kenan Bilgic, has since
stated that there have been "positive developments" for
negotiations between prison officials and the prisoners.

(Source: various issues of Angehoerigen Info and Kurdistan
Rundbrief)

Statement From PKK Political Prisoners
Prison Massacre In Diyarbakir

     For a long time now, before the eyes of the world, those of us
in prison have been openly oppressed, tortured, and attacked in a
manner which can only be described as a massacre. Our comrades were
tortured almost every day on their way to court, beaten with clubs,
boards, belts, shovels and other tools. Some were beaten so badly
that they went into comas. As these injuries which our comrades
suffered show, the aim of this torture was death. Dozens suffered
cracked heads and broken arms, they had wounds all over their
bodies, and some of our comrades will now be crippled for their
entire lives. The continuity of such attacks reached the point
where the prison officials even began denying us such basic things
as food and water and other necessities of life.
     On October 4, 1994, on the pretext of acting on a confession
by our comrade Erdogan Dincer, the prison was surrounded in the
early morning by thousands of soldiers, police, plainclothes
officers, special units, guards, "defectors" who had gone over to
the contra-guerrilla, and special army forces. All visitors were
turned away and the assembled forces carried out a major attack on
the prison.
     The attack was directly coordinated and led by state
officials, including the army commander in Diyarbakir, the
governor, the security agency (political police), the state
prosecutor's office, and prison officials.
     From 8:00 a.m. that day until the next day, October 5, prison
blocks 27, 25, 31, and 18 were attacked. Hundreds of smokebombs and
tear gas grenades were fired against our comrades and high-pressure
water was blasted inside prison cells. Many of our comrades
suffered from smoke inhalation and many were injured by the water
blasts. Some were so badly injured that they fell into comas.
     But that wasn't all. The security forces of the fascist
Turkish state tossed a firebomb into block 27 in the afternoon. The
block was completely destroyed by fire. Then they detonated sticks
of dynamite alongside the walls of blocks 27, 25, and 18 and blew
up the burning buildings. Then the state forces entered the prison
and opened fire on our comrades, some of whom were already dead or
in comas, with G3, Kalashnikov, and Akrep weapons. Meanwhile the
security forces on the outside were also firing at the prison
walls.
     Many of our comrades were also injured when plainclothes
police climbed up onto the roofs and entered into the other prison
blocks and began beating people.
     After this, the soldiers removed 309 prisoners, who were
either overpowered or already dead, from blocks 27, 25, 18, and 31.
They were thrown face-down on the floor of a long corridor.
Countless soldiers, plainclothes police, special team forces, and
contra-guerrillas, all of whom were waiting, rushed in and
immediately began beating people mercilessly, regardless of whether
they were dead or alive, using clubs, iron bars, boards, and other
items. The prisoners were then dragged down the stairs. Dozens has
broken arms, legs, ribs, or cracked skulls. The halls were covered
with blood.
     We do not know how many of the 309 comrades, who were taken to
an undisclosed location, were killed or how many are still alive.
All of us were witnesses to how our comrades, who were already in
a lifeless situation, a situation totally out of their control,
could be tortured in such a brutal fashion. These 309 comrades were
taken away at 4:00 a.m., which seems to imply that several people
had been killed.
     This attack is a massacre and a provocation which has been
building up for some time now. It is becoming clear that the
fascist Turkish Republic is seeking to surpass the cruelty in
Diyarbakir prison of 1980.
     These attacks, which exceed those carried out unter the
fascist junta of September 12, 1980 in Diyarbakir prison at the
beginning of the 80s, are designed to destroy the prisoners and
destroy our national identity, our convictions, and our worth. We,
PKK prisoners of war imprisoned in Amed [the Kurdish name for
Diyarbakir - trans.], are the ones who are seeking to transform
this prison into a Saigon jail, a place where we can defend our
worth and our political identity, and we will resist this cruelty
with all means available, including death-fasts and self-
immolation.
     The attackers must be made to pay for their crimes. This
attack will remain a thorn in their side. At least one of our
comrades burned himself to death during this attack.
     We expect from everyone that calls themself a person, from the
democratic Turkish public and all of progressive humanity, to not
ignore this attempted massacre in Amed prison and to try and find
out what happened to our comrade Erdogan Dincer and the 309 of our
comrades who were taken away following this attack.
     We will continue to resist this cruelty by means of our
continuing 5-day rotating hungerstrike.
     We seek to inform the world about the cruelty in Amed prison
and we expect everyone to take note.

In the name of the PKK political prisoners in Diyarbakir prison,

Yilmaz Yurek and Latif Cetin
October 5, 1994

(Translated from Angehoerigen Info #156)

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