Mainstreamnews on political prisoners in Turkey

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TURKISH POLITICAL PRISONERS TAKE GUARDS HOSTAGE AT FOUR JAILS

Copyright &copy 1998 Nando.net
Copyright &copy 1998 Reuters News Service

ANKARA (March 31, 1998 12:19 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) -
Left-wing inmates at Turkish jails held dozens of prison guards
hostage and set fire to cells on Tuesday in nationwide protests over
jail transfers, prison officials said.

They said the prisoners, affiliated to a far-left urban guerrilla
group, seized 12 warders at Bergama jail and 11 guards in Bursa in
western Turkey, 11 staff at a prison in Istanbul, and four more at an
Ankara jail.

There was no word of any injuries.

The prisoners of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front
(DHKP-C) are demanding an end to transfers of left-wing inmates from
the western Buca jail. Two senior prison officials were among the
hostages.

"The DHKP-C has taken 11 guards hostage, including the deputy
governor," an official at Umraniye jail in Istanbul told Reuters.

A fire started by the inmates in Ankara jail was put out by emergency
services called to the scene. A similar fire at Buca jail, the focus
of the protests, was also extinguished early on Tuesday.

But Buca inmates had barricaded themselves in their dormitories and
were refusing to participate in a roll call, prison officials said. A
human rights group was mediating in negotiations with the prisoners.

"The prisoners said the protest would come to an end and the hostages
released when their comrades had reached their destinations safely,"
Justice Minister Oltan Sungurlu was quoted as saying by the Anatolian
news agency.

"I hope they stop this protest, because there's no serious reason for
it," he said.

Police wearing riot gear and backed by armoured cars surrounded the
Ankara jail, witnesses said.

"At the moment two lawyers are negotiating inside," an official from
the Human Rights Association said of the Ankara prison, a grey
concrete complex with blank steel gates in one of the city's oldest
districts.

"The situation is the same. Negotiations are continuing," a prison
official at the Istanbul jail told Reuters.

Prisoners in Turkey's jails are generally kept in open dormitories
instead of individual cells. Political groups are normally held
together to avoid violence with rival factions.

Guerrillas from DHKP-C have been involved in rocket attacks and
killings of security force members in Turkey's major cities.

Seven people died last year when baton-wielding police put down a riot
at an Istanbul prison. Ten prisoners died in a similar incident the
year before.

Eleven people died in a hunger strike over prison conditions in 1996.
Scores of jail hunger strikers called off a similar protest late last
year narrowly avoiding casualties after a deal with prison
authorities.

By ALISTAIR BELL, Reuters
 
-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
For justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan!
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