Hunger Strike Beyond Prison Walls

It is a measured death that began 167 days ago, when Sener stopped eating to protest the treatment of left-wing inmates in Turkey's prisons.

She is one of nearly 800 people fasting inside and outside Turkey's prison walls. Three residents of Armutlu have died. Four other hunger strikers, including Sener, live together in a tiny house awaiting either death or government concessions to their demands.

The hunger strike's death toll nationwide is 20 and rising daily.

Sener, 22, a former philosophy student who allows herself only water and fruit juice, struggled to explain: "In prison, the options for protest are limited. You can break down walls, you can destroy the tables and chairs, you can shatter windows, but no one on the outside will hear.

"As outsiders we can take their actions into the spotlight."

New type of prison

Although the protests are portrayed in Turkey as opposition to a switch from dormitory-style prisons to facilities known as "F-type" prisons--maximum security with small cells for one to three people--the demands are more wide ranging.

The strikers seek abolition of state security courts, which are used for political trials and other sensitive cases. They demand more rights for the Kurdish people in Turkey and a break with an economic

reform agreement reached with the International Monetary Fund.

They also call for the end of the anti-terrorism law that critics say has resulted in 11,000 political prisoners among the 58,000 inmates in Turkish prisons.

The protests were triggered when the Turkish Ministry of Justice announced plans to transfer people convicted under the anti-terrorism law to the new institutions. Worried about what they saw as the

government's intention to isolate political prisoners, several left-wing groups, including the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front and the Turkish Communist Workers' Party, began a hunger

strike Oct. 29.

On Dec. 19, when government troops stormed prisons across the country to force an end to the protest and transfer the first inmates to the new prisons in an operation called "Return to Life," 33 people,

including two soldiers, died.

Reports of beatings

Friends and relatives said prisoners transferred to the new prisons have been beaten and kept in isolation in violation of international standards.

Amnesty International said in a report last week that it had documented many of the claims concerning abuses and isolation in the new prisons. Ever since the 1978 movie "Midnight Express," about a young American imprisoned in Turkey, the country's prisons have been notorious for inhumane conditions and abuses.

The prisons also have been home to many of the leftists who have challenged the country's government. Some former inmates argue that the hunger strikers cannot be understood outside of the political

context.

"Is there any modern democratic country in the world with 11,000 political prisoners?" asked Ertugrul Kurkcu, a journalist who spent 14 years in prison as a result of membership in a leftist group.

"This is abnormal. This is a political crime. The concept should be eliminated and then you will see the scale of this problem diminish immediately."

Certainly the people inside the small house in Armutlu see their protest in broad political terms. They have opened the house to local and foreign journalists to publicize their concerns.

Flowers, photos and personal mementos of three women--Gulsuman Donmez, 38, Canan Kulaksiz, 19, and Senay Hanoglu, who at the age of 30 left two young children behind--are on display.

Called `a graceful death'

Bilgesu Erenus said she had come to support the hunger strikers: "These young people are standing up for the global left. I sympathize with the idea of granting yourself a graceful death rather than life

in despair."

The government has tried to find a solution to appease the hunger strikers.

Last week, it introduced legislation that would allow prisoners in the new facilities to use common areas and mingle with other inmates.

But the proposal did not stop the strike.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has refused to authorize direct negotiations with the hunger strikers.

"The state will not bow its head under pressure from those who force their own friends to die," Ecevit said last week.

Still, human-rights advocates say the only way to end the strike is through talks between the inmates and authorities. Until that occurs, they said, the death toll will climb.

Some of those deaths are likely to occur inside this small house in Istanbul.