'Monitoring Commission for Hunger Strikes' Founded

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The İstanbul Medical Association (İTO), the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV), The Medical and Social Service Laborers' Union (SES) and the Human Rights Association (İHD) have announced in a press statement that they founded the 'Monitoring Commission for Hunger Strikes.'

İHD İstanbul Branch Chair Gülseren Yoleri, SES Anatolian Branch Chair Erdal Güzel, TİHV member Ayşe Çetintaş and İTO board member Murat Ekmen have attended the press statement held at İHD İstanbul Branch in Beyoğlu district.

Yoleri has said that in addition to watching the hunger strikes, the commission will document the information obtained during prison visits.

'Hunger strikers are prevented from using their social rights'

Saying that the hunger strikers are prevented from using their social rights, Yoleri has made the following remarks:

"The inmates who begin hunger strikes are being prevented from using their social rights, they are given disciplinary penalties, banned from meeting with visitors or sending letters. Social events in prisons are also being prevented.

"Law on Execution of Sentences is being violated"

"İHD's reports and statements of isolation being a method of torture have been present since 1997. We have repeatedly said that isolation is torture. Now practices violating the Law on Execution of Sentences are imposed on us by the prisons.

"The data available to us shows that the feeling of the lack of a solution caused by injustice and unlawfulness will cause the number of hunger strikers to increase."

Yoleri repeated the demand that the isolation practices in prisons shall be ended.

"Almost 300 inmates are on hunger strike"

After Yoleri's speech, İTO board member Ekmen read the press statement.

The statement said that medical, ethical and legal problems regarding the hunger strikes are concerning and the number of those who began a non-rotating and indefinite hunger strike is close to 300.

Saying that the purpose of a hunger strike is not death but to protest and voice demands, Erkmen stated that the demands of the strikers should be granted. The following demands are included in the statement:

"Providing regular medical check-ups for the inmates who are on hunger strikes in accordance with the national and international ethical principles and ensuring that independent physicians are able to work in prisons.

"Providing the hunger strikers with water, salt, şugar, carbonate and vitamin B1 to prevent disabilities. Vitamin B complex tablets should given to the strikers in full dose.

"To put an end to the hunger strikes before deaths and irreversible disabilities happen, the necessary humanitarian sensitivity shall be shown and a solution shall be reached by democratic means." (HA/VK)