TIHV Call for Hunger Strike Survivors

At the press conference at Nazim Hikmet Culture and Arts Foundation, the TIHV volunteers stated that the estimated annual cost of a long-term treatment for one survivor is a thousand dollars.

Because of the insufficiency of the donations to the foundation, the long-term treatments that need continuity are compulsorily being limited to a certain period of time.

The TIHV volunteers, including academician Huseyin Hatemi, writer Cezmi Ersoz, and artists Suavi and Deniz Turkali, called for immediate support and cooperation from everybody who do not want to remain a viewer to what is going on, and who are pro-life.

Funding to Provide Necessary Medical Care

The press conference started with the screening of a documentary about the military operations at the prisons and what the hunger strikers are going through. After the press conference, Fatos Guney, the chair of the Yilmaz Guney Foundation, stated that the TIHV has undertaken the treatments of 441 survivors up to today.

Guney stressed that the TIHV can only go ahead with this responsibility if it is immediately provided with the resources it has run out of, to provide necessary medical care.

Highlighting that a total of 220 billion Turkish liras have been spent for the treatments of the survivors since April 2001, Guney reminded that the cost of a long-term treatment, which lasts for at least two years, for one survivor is about a thousand dollars.

Guney said that the TIHV has been providing for necessary medical care for the survivors up to today, but it will be in serious trouble financially in the coming days.

"We may or may not support these protests. But it is impossible to remain indifferent to the situation these people are in. Hundreds of people were injured and disabled during the military operations. Many show signs of central nervous system damage, including loss of memory as a result of the death fasts. At the moment, they are as helpless and as needy as a child. We cannot remain as just viewers to what is happening. There certainly are things we can do."

The Doctors are in a Difficult Position

The Istanbul representative Sukran Iremcin, who spoke on behalf of the TIHV said, "As human rights activists, there are times when we are in a very difficult position. Because we cannot afford the special food, which makes up the majority of the medical expenses, the people who are being treated weigh much less that they should. For this reason, I, and the other doctors are in a serious discomfort." (OG/FA/EA/NM)