Grup Yorum Music Band Member Gökçek on Hunger Strike in Prison for 111 Days

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Grup Yorum music band members Helin Bölek, Bahar Kurt, İbrahim Gökçek, Barış Yüksel and Ali Aracı have been on an indefinite hunger strike.

The group has shared a recent picture of İbrahim Gökçek on its Twitter account. Gökçek has been on a hunger strike for the past 111 days. Some members of the group have been on a hunger strike for 144 days.

The members started their strike with the following demands:

* End the police raids against İdil Cultural Center, which is constantly raided, attempted to be terrorized and where the group is conducting its activities

* Remove the Grup Yorum members from the wanted lists of the Ministry

* Remove the ban on the concerts of Grup Yorum, all concerts of which have been banned for almost three years.

* Drop the lawsuits filed against Grup Yorum members

* Release all arrested Grup Yorum members

What happened?

The İdil Cultural Center in Okmeydanı, İstanbul has been raided by the police for eight times over the last two years.

The center where Grup Yorum music band had been conducting its activities was raided by the police in October and November 2016, in May and September 2017 and in October and November 2018.

During the raids, instruments of Grup Yorum members were either broken or gone missing, their music books were also damaged. According to the statement made by the group, a total of 30 people were arrested in these raids. Over ten members of the band are still arrested.

Six members of the band are in the Ministry of Interior's "gray list" as wanted terrorists: İnan Altın, Selma Altın, Ali Aracı, İbrahim Gökçek, Emel Yeşilırmak, İhsan Cibelik. There is also a 300 thousand TRY bounty for those who will report the band members charged with being a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).

Selma Altın and İnan Altın applied for asylum in France.

Its annual "Independent Turkey Concerts" have been banned by the governorship since 2015. The band gave a concert on the Internet on July 1, 2018. (AS/SD)