4 October 2001 Edition
Funerals attacked as Turkish death toll reaches 40
Activists held a vigil outside of the Turkish Embassy in Dublin on Monday to mark the appalling deaths of another four hunger strikers in their long hunger strike against the Turkish government's introduction of F-Type prisons, which isolate political prisoners.
Two hunger strikers, Ali Riza Demir, 28, who was arrested at the university of Istanbul and charged with membership of a revolutionary group DHKP-C, and Zeynip Arikan, who has been in prison for five years, whose husband, Kazim Gulbag sacrificed his life in an act of self-immolation outside of a prison in Hamburg, Germany, both died last Thursday. Zeynep had been 343 days on hunger strike.
Ozlem Durakcan, who was on a solidarity Death Fast outside of the prison, died after 74 days, last Friday, and Ayse Bastimur died only a few hours later after 341 days on hunger strike. She brought the total number of deaths through hunger strike to 40.
It is reported that police attacked their funerals, arrested several hundred people and that at the funerals of Ayse and Ozlem the dead bodies of both women were captured and taken away.
Two hunger strikers, Ali Riza Demir, 28, who was arrested at the university of Istanbul and charged with membership of a revolutionary group DHKP-C, and Zeynip Arikan, who has been in prison for five years, whose husband, Kazim Gulbag sacrificed his life in an act of self-immolation outside of a prison in Hamburg, Germany, both died last Thursday. Zeynep had been 343 days on hunger strike.
Ozlem Durakcan, who was on a solidarity Death Fast outside of the prison, died after 74 days, last Friday, and Ayse Bastimur died only a few hours later after 341 days on hunger strike. She brought the total number of deaths through hunger strike to 40.
It is reported that police attacked their funerals, arrested several hundred people and that at the funerals of Ayse and Ozlem the dead bodies of both women were captured and taken away.