Request for Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger Strikes

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Siirt MP Meral Danış Beştaş, who previously brought the condition of hunger striking inmates into parliamentary agenda, has submitted a parliamentary inquiry and requested that a parliamentary investigation committee be established so that concrete steps could be taken to resolve hunger strikes.

In her parliamentary inquiry, Danış Beştaş has said, "The duty to keep people alive is the primary responsibility of the state. It is indispensable for the state to remember this responsibility and take the necessary steps."

'Death fast' statement by 15 prisoners

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Hakkari MP and Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-Chair Leyla Güven went on a hunger strike on November 8, 2018 with the demand that the isolation imposed on Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan be ended.

On December 16, hundreds of inmates from more than 50 prisons across Turkey followed suit and went on a hunger strike. As of March 1, 2019, thousands of inmates have been on a hunger strike. Since then, eight inmates have claimed their own lives with the same demand.

Moreover, 15 inmates from the Bakırköy Closed Prison, Gebze Closed Prison, Van High Security Prison and Diyarbakır Type D Prison have announced that they have "started a death fast" with the same demand.

CLICK - Parliamentary Speaker Şentop: It Wouldn't Be Right for me to Visit Leyla Güven

Making a statement about Leyla Güven, Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa Şentop said, "She has very different requests and these requests do not solely pertain to her, they are requests about another prisoner. From this point of view, I think that this protest which does not have any logic should be ended. Let me also state that I would not find a visit right."

Emphasis on state's 'responsibility of keeping alive'

Danış Beştaş has stated the following in the parliamentary inquiry:

"Since the state's responsibility of keeping people alive is on the forefront in hunger strikes, it is also within the scope of its duty and responsibility to evaluate the requests expressed in hunger strikes and to improve the conditions accordingly. As the state does not take any steps about this issue, it does not fulfill its responsibility of keeping alive.

"It must be taken into consideration that hundreds of people have already been on the verge of life and they have made this choice not for a personal matter, but for the state to return to the legal norms.

"It is within the scope of parliament's duty to ensure the improvement of democracy and a return to the universal legal norms for the welfare and benefit of the whole society."

Concluding the inquiry, HDP Siirt MP Meral Danış Beştaş has emphasized, "It is a conscientious and historical responsibility of the Parliament to establish a parliamentary investigation commission to evaluate the causes and effects of hunger strikes and death fasts since their beginning and to take steps towards the provision of right to life." (AS/SD)