News updates and appeals from Turkey
Statement of TAYAD No. 388 12th of October 2001
ALL KINDS OF ARBITRARY TORTURE CONTINUES IN THE F-TYPE PRISONS…
Maskey released by Turkish authorities Irish News - 18th September 2001
Members of Irish Delegation arrested in Turkey - see report HERE TAYAD Committee (London)
Prevent the Massacre in Armutlu
The Anti-imperialist Camp calls for massive participation:
Thursday August 23
17-08-01
A PRESS INSTITUTION WAS RAIDED WITH SLEDGE HAMMERS
Press Release from Armutlu Resisters - 22nd July
"If there is any harm against our friends we will burn ourselves!"
• OUR CALL UPON ALL PEOPLE WHO ARE HUMAN BEINGS • At this moment, 20 death fast resisters in Istanbul, Kucukarmutlu are
going on with their resistance. * URGENT APPEAL * Date: July 17, 2001 Between 1999-2000 the f type prisons were constructed in our country
with the approval of America and Europe. The revolutionary prisoners and
the forces outside started the death fast after having tried all
possible democratic ways to close down the F type prisons. Detention at the action against F-Type Prisons Kurdish Observer, July 17, 2001
Our children still continue to die. They are still keeping our children in the hospitals in order to leave them handicapped. Our children are still being subjected to any kind of torture in its strongest form 24 hours a day. Their hair and beards are cut by force and none of the things that we bring them are given to our children.
When we visit them the guards are bringing out our children whilst strongly holding their arms, even though they are on hungerstrike or death fast. By this way they are attempting to destroy their psychology. The prohibiting of receiving letters at the F-type prisons of Tekirdag and Buca Kirikla is still continuing. The lawyer’s who try to visit our relatives at Sincan F-Type prison are hindered in a completely illegal way.
GÜLBAHAR ÜNLÜ, FAY´K ÖNDER, HALY´L ACAR, ESAT UÇKAN, ZELY´HA ERTÜRK, MAHMUT ÖZTÜRKMEN, MERYEM ALTUN and NY´HAT SÖNMEZ are still confronted with the torture of forcible medical intervention. Instead of accepting the demands of our relatives the state is leaving them handicapped through forcible medical intervention. They are attempting to finish the Death Fast resistance with any kind of torture and violation of the rights. The question won’t be solved until the negotiations have started and the demands are fulfilled. The state has to break its silence and accept the demands of our relatives. The demands of our relatives are democratic, humane and acceptable.
Our death fast resistance will continue until the demands are accepted.
TAYAD FAMILIES
By Bimpe Fatogun
Sinn Féin’s chief whip, Alex Maskey, is expected to arrive back in Belfast today, cutting short a fact-finding mission to Turkey after he was detained by authorities two days ago.
Mr Maskey was among five republicans who were in Turkey to meet the families and supporters of Turkish hunger striking prisoners. A total of 34 people have already died in the hunger strike by members of a left-wing militant group who are protesting at prison conditions.
Sinn Féin sources said last night the group had been taken into custody by police as they neared an area containing "the deathfast houses". "They were followed from the airport where they were met by an interpreter who was taking them into an area in Istanbul where the deathfast houses are," a Sinn Féin spokeswoman told the Irish News.
The houses are so called because they are where some members of the prisoners families, also on hunger strike, perished.
"They were held for about an hour and a half and had their passports taken off them," she said."Their interpreter was also arrested and is still being held. We don’t know when he will be released."
The delegation went ahead with their scheduled meetings but took the decision to return early. "They are worried that other people they meet might be arrested too so they want to come back as soon as possible," the Sinn Féin spokeswoman said.
A spokeswoman for the Turkish embassy said they had not received any reports of the arrests.
A group from the Irish Republican Socialist Party flew out to Turkey on a similar fact-finding mission yesterday.
URGENT ACTION…… URGENT ACTION…..URGENT ACTION
September 15, 2001 - Time: 6.20 p.m.
Police attack on the people of Küçükarmutlu (Istanbul)
This afternoon at around 2.00 p.m. the police attacked the funeral of Umus Sahingoz , who died yesterday on the 330th day of the death fast.
The death fast (hungerstrike until death) in Turkey continues now for 331 days and was started by the political prisoners against a repressive isolation system in the prisons called F-Types. Until today 65 prisoners, family members and supporters even in Europe have lost their lives during the resistance. Family members of prisoners are supporting their children in the death fast action.
To stop the resistance the Turkish government conditionally released prisoners on death fast. Most of them continue their action together with members of TAYAD (Solidarity Association of Prisoner's Families) in Kucuk Armutlu, which is a poor neighbourhood of Istanbul.
According to our information the police arrested around 150 persons in the
beginning of today's attack, using violence. Armutlu is surrounded by police forces whom started to attack the people of the neighbourhood Kucuk Armutlu. They use arms, panzers, water hoses and gas bombs against the population. It was told by some people of the neighbourhood that some persons were hit by panzers and injured by bullets. Gas masks were distributed to the press and the attacking police are shouting for "REVENGE".
Inhabitants of Kucuk Armutlu, to whom it was still possible to communicate, told that they were effected by the gas bombs very strongly and that they could hardly breathe. The police are burning down everything and are close to the resistance houses.
Some of the resisters in Kucuk Armutlu have warned that they'll sacrifice themselves if the police doesn't stop the attack.
Nobody knows in this moment how many people are wounded and if there are deaths.
This is a clear attempt for a massacre.
We have warned the public in Europe hundreds of times to be sensible in this case. The silence has to be broken.
Turkey tries to take advantage from the recent international situation and kill the people in Kucuk Armutlu who are on the side of the prisoners on death fast, aside from the international public.
We urge to draw attention to this urgent and serious problem and act as soon as you can to save the lives of the people on death fast, their family members and friends.
Call the responsible of Foreign Affairs of your government or the authorities in Turkey to protest against the arbitrary attack and ask the immediate release for all arrested people. [Addresses and numbers for protests click here]
Tel: 0475-487 202
Protest fax numbers in Turkey:
Minister of Internal Affairs, Turkey
Tel: 0090-312-418 13 68
Fax: 0090-312-418 17 95
Minister of Justice, Turkey
Tel: 0090-312-419 60 50
Fax: 0090-312-417 39 54
Amnesty International Ireland appeal on attacks in Küçükarmutlu click here
Turkish police clash with hunger strike supporters
Original Report Here
Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001
ISTANBUL, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Turkish police clashed with protesters outside an Istanbul house occupied by leftist hunger strikers on Saturday and used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them, a human rights group and witnesses said.
The house in the Kucuk Armutlu district of Istanbul is the base for a group of former prisoners and their families who are on a months-long hunger strike in protest at prison reforms.
A 32-year-old woman who had been living in the house died on Friday, bringing the total number of deaths in the hunger strikes to 34.
Witnesses said police had tried to break up a crowd of people gathered around the body of the dead woman as it was carried out of the house to be taken to the funeral.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to break up the crowd and later set up road blocks nearby to stop traffic coming in. One witness said he had seen around 20 people detained. Police declined to comment on the
operation.
Reuters reporters at the scene said dozens of supporters of the hunger strikers had set up barricades around the house after the initial clashes and were burning tyres.A police armoured car rammed the barricade but retreated when protesters threw stones.
After a tense standoff lasting several hours police returned in force with five armoured vehicles and dozens of troops to break up the barricades and disperse the protesters, who were throwing petrol bombs and stones, using more tear gas.
Supporters of the hunger strikers said several people were lightly injured in the clashes which occurred just days after a suicide bombing, claimed by an extreme leftist group, which killed two police officers and an Australian tourist.
BREAKING STRANGLEHOLD
The hunger strikes began in prisons late last year in protest at the introduction of new cell-based jails to replace prisons based on large dormitory wards. Many prisoners and their families strongly oppose the new jails, saying they make inmates more vulnerable to abuse by prison wardens.
Ankara says the new jails meet European standards and are essential to break the stranglehold of political groups and organised criminals in larger prison wards. Turkey tried to end the protests last December by raiding jails across the country and enforcing prison transfers but some 30 inmates and two soldiers died in the raids.
A leftist group called the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front(DHKP/C) said this week it had carried out Monday's suicide bombing at an Istanbul police station that killed the bomber and three others. The group said the bombing was in support of the hunger strikers and to avenge the crackdown on prisons last year.
Graffiti in favour of the DHKP/C are a common sight in the Kucuk Armutlu district, a working-class neighbourhood in the European side of the city overlooking the Bosphorus.
Now, there is the threat of a new massacre, this time addressed against the mothers, sisters and brothers, against all relatives who have joined the fighters. The police and army have surrounded Armutlu, a slum in the city of Istanbul, threatening to suffocate the resistance in blood.
It is imperative to prevent the menacing massacre of Armutlu. This means to keep an international solidarity delegation continuously present in Armutlu, as well as to spread information worldwide and to hold protests in front of Turkish or NATO institutions.
Yesterday, the first solidarity delegations including a delegation of the Anti-imperialist Camp are leaving for Turkey from different European countries. Other delegations will follow in the coming weeks.
The delegation of the Anti-imperialist Camp is reporting that today the 63rd martyr, the 38 year old Hülya Simsek , has given her life to the cause of the people on the 286th day of her death fast. Her dead body has been brought to Armutlu and this night there will be a popular celebration and a procession passing by the entire quarter at which the solidarity delegation will participate.
During the day the delegation participated in the trial against 12 female political prisoners being accused among others to have killed three fellow inmates during the attack by the state against the political prisoners of the Ümranye complex on December 19 of last year.
A protest meeting of the relatives taking place in front of the court was dissolved by the police using savage violence against women and elderly.
See the complete report:
www.antiimperialista.com/view.shtml?category=all&id=999282120&keyword=+
Call to form solidarity delegations:
www.antiimperialista.com/en/view.shtml?category=9&id=999207809&keyword=+
We call upon all democratic people to raise their voices in protest against the imminent massacre:
Minister of Justice: hsturk@adalet.gov.tr
Director General of the Prisons ertosun@adalet.gov.tr
-------------
Antiimperialist Camp
PF 23, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Tel&Fax +43 1 504 00 10
camp@antiimperialista.com
www.antiimperialista.com/en
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Turkish Watchdog Says Reports of Torture Soaring
ANKARA (Reuters) - There has been a sharp increase in allegations of torture and curbs on freedom of expression in Turkey, the country's Human Rights Association (IHD) said on Thursday.
IHD head Husnu Ondul said 435 people had complained of torture in detention in the first half of this year, compared to 263 for the same period last year and 334 for the same period in 1999.
``It is clear that no improvement has been made in getting rid of torture since 1999,'' Ondul told a news conference to present the association's half-yearly report on human rights in Turkey.
Turkey, which is keen to join the European Union has long pledged to root out such abuses. Although accepted as a candidate for EU membership in 1999, it has yet to begin negotiations partly because of concern over its human rights
record.
Critics say little is done to investigate charges of abuse and those who carry it out are rarely punished.
According to IHD figures, prosecutors charged 1,519 people in the first half of this year for views expressed in speeches or writing, and sought jail terms totalling 3,125 years for them.
The human rights group did not say how many people had been charged in previous years, but said the total jail terms sought in the first half of 1999 amounted to 372 years, and 813 years in the first half of last year.
Many politicians, writers and intellectuals face jail sentences on catch-all charges such as ``separatist propaganda'' or ``provoking hatred'' for what they have said or written.
Allegations of mistreatment at the hands of security forces are also common.
The laws are most often used against Kurdish activists or proponents of political Islam, two movements the establishment sees as a serious threat to the secular Turkish state.
URGENT ACTION…… URGENT ACTION…..URGENT ACTION
TO THE PRESS AND PUBLIC OPINION
Turkish state surrounded the Death Fast resistance houses in Armutlu-Istanbul where the released prisoners have joined their families and friends in continuing their Death Fast resistance in order to protest against and establish support to close down the new F-Type isolation prisons.
Today they are trying to cause provocations in order to carry out another massacre.
Death Fast resister Yildiz Gemicioglu was kidnapped at gunpoint and taken from Armutlu by Turkish security forces and they want to murder her.
In order to create a legal basis to carry out a massacre in Armutlu, they have been saying, "these people in the houses are hostages". In the past resisters have announced that if the state lays one finger on them, they will set themselves alight.
We call upon to all democratic establishments and individuals who claim that they have not lost their humanity to make an urgent action in order to stop this massacre taking place. People in Turkey are waiting for your support.
Send your protest messages to:
Prime Minister:
Tel: 0090 312 419 5897-98
Fax:0090 312 417 3954
Turkish Parliament:
Tel: 0090 312 419 6050-51
Ministry of Justice:
Tel: 0090 312 419 6050-51
Fax: 0090 312 417 3954
Ministry of Interior:
Tel: 0090 312 418 3168-425 4030
Fax: 0090 312 418 1795
THERE IS NO PRESS FREEDOM OR FREEDOM OF THOUGHT IN TURKEY
Our magazine Yasadigimiz VATAN [The COUNTRY we live in] was raided by 500 policemen on 8th August 2001 at 04:30 a.m. and the doors and walls were down broken by sledgehammers.
They came into our office. We asked to see a search warrant. They had a search warrant issued by the STATE SECURITY COURT, who’s understanding of legality is well known throughout the world, issued EXACTLY 12 DAY PREVIOUSLY and only for use in a DAYTIME search. We told them that it was illegal and we were not going to open the door until our lawyers arrived.
Simultaneously they started demolishing the walls with sledgehammers. ‘Lawyers’ and ‘law’ are the kind of concepts they do not like. They broke and damaged everything including inner walls. Our office looked like the prisons on 19th December. Our editor-in-chief and all the employees were beaten-up, covered in blood and detained.
WITH THE EXCEPTION OF TWO TELEPHONES ALL OF OUR TECHNICAL EQUIPMENT AND ARCHIVES WERE LOADED ONTO THEIR LORRIES AND TAKEN AWAY. Computers, printers, cameras, in short, everything the magazine needs to carry out its publishing activity was taken away.
THEY WANTED TO OBSTRUCT VATAN’S PUBLICATION. In Turkey the greatest incriminating material is the means of Publication. They are the means by which we spread our thoughts and forward them to the people.
Those who raided our office were led by a Deputy Security Director named SEFIK KUL. Sefik Kul was a part of the murder squads for years. He murdered people on numerous occasions and after every murder he committed he was promoted, this is how he reached his present rank. There are 8 cases of him executing people. He has actually executed dozens of people. Those who carrying out the largest number of murders, on behalf of the state in Turkey, get promoted and run the country.
Every 3-5 months, hundreds of policemen arrive, claiming that they have received some information, they raid our office and break our equipment. Nothing ever comes out of it. Nevertheless, they keep repeating the same exercise with the same excuses. These raids have become a routine. There is only one meaning to it: YOU SHOULD NOT WRITE, YOU SHOULD KEEP QUIET!
What did we write? Why did they want to silence us?
We write about justice and fight for equality.
We defend the right to freedom of thought and organisation.
We say there is no democracy in Turkey, that Fascism rules the country.
We say the army and the police rule the country and there has never been democracy.
We say that sheer force and violence are ruling everything.
We defend the struggle for rights and freedoms. We let the world know about the Death Fast resistance.
That’s why they wish to silence us.
The picture of demolished walls, blood smeared employees, detentions, seized equipment IS THE PICTURE OF THE ABSENCE OF PRESS FREEDOM AND FREEDOM OFTHOUGHT in Turkey. GO ON AND SEE THE PICTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY, WHICH YOU POUR MILLIONS OF EUROS INTO TO SUPPORT.
Do you defend justice, equality and freedoms for the press and thoughts?
Are you going to defend Vatan?
Are you going to question the Turkish state for demolishing walls, torturing employees and seizing equipment?
Or are you going to issue a fine through ECHR (European Court for Human Rights). They collect that money from our people’s pockets anyway!
We really would like to see Europe defending freedoms for the press and thoughts!
We wish to see some action against the attempts to silence those who demand justice and equality, and those who say that the police and army govern Turkey.
10 August 2001
Yasadigimiz VATAN magazine
The press release was begun by Gamze Turan who was on the fourth team of Death Fast resisters in Kartal prison. She spoke about the operation carried out by the state on December 19th.
She added that:
"The entrances to Armutlu are blockaded by Panzers and water cannon, special teams and riot police. The people are being prevented from travelling and going about their business. The police are illegally and arbitrary stopping the people and asking are they going to the resistance house. From time to time the police are arresting the people. The police have prevented the public bus from leaving the area. The way they isolated us in prison is the way they are trying to isolate us here in Armutlu. They are stealing the chairs the people use to sit on outside saying they can be used in barricades. At midnight the houses surrounding the resistance house were all raided, the police said they had information that there were illegal things in the house but it was not true. This irritates the people. Sometimes at three or four o'clock in the morning the police fire shots into the air to intimidate the people.
This is the provocation for a massacre. They are creating a tense atmosphere; this is the sign that the massacre is coming. In the name of the twenty Death Fast fighters we are saying that if the state attempts anything, if they use violence, if they harm our friends, we will burn ourselves. No one must doubt our determination. Today is the 277th day. No one must doubt our determination if there is any harm against our friends we will burn ourselves."
Kucukarmutlu is a shantytown in Istanbul. Police are preparing themselves to attack. If they do that, there will be a new massacre, this time not in prisons,
but outside.
We are calling upon all people over all Europe and world, to go to
Kucukarmutlu to support and protect them. When you are there, the police will not be able to attack on the resisters in front of the eyes of the whole world.
It is not a plea, but a cry:
GO AND SUPPORT THEM. YOU ARE ABLE TO PROTECT THEM.
To all anti-imperialists, anti-globalizationists, anti-capitalists,
anti-fascists and all those who are on the side of labour and freedom,
to all Marxist-Leninists and all progressive institutions and people.
THE MASSACRE AND RESISTANCE CONTINUES IN THE PRISONS OF TURKEY. WE URGE
YOU TO PUT THE RESISTANCE ON YOUR AGENDA AND TO SUPPORT IT!
The hunger strike started by the prisoners of the trials of DHKP-C,
TKP(ML) and TKIP on 20th October 2000 was turned into a death fast on
the 19th of November 2000. 204 death fast resisters were participating
in the first two death fast teams, of which 131 belong to the DHKP-C and
about 1000 prisoners went on a support hunger strike.
On the 60th day of the death fast, December 19th, the state launched a
simultaneous operation in 22 prisons.
It massacred 28 prisoners by burning and shooting them. It has injured
hundreds of them. It opened the F types. In the middle of the massacre
and the torture the prisoners who were transferred to the F types were
thrown into the cells. But they couldn't break the resistance. The
resistance continued by drawing in a wider section of society. Several
political groups who had not participated in the death fast earlier now
also joined the death fast.
The murderous government, who wasn't able to break the resistance with
massacres, torture and isolation cells, tried to break the resistance
with forced medical intervention. More than 60 prisoners were left
handicapped as a result of this torture.
Finally the government released the resisters whom they had left
handicapped and who were on the brink of death, in order to break the
resistance.
The released DHKP-C prisoners have continued their resistance on the
outside. Two of them, Gokhan Ococak and Sevgi Erdogan fell martyred.
Tens of released death fast resisters are continuing their resistance in
the poor Gecekondu shantytown’s in our country.
THIS IS THE RESULT:
To date we have given 60 martyrs, both inside and outside of the prisons
and more than 60 of our people remain handicapped, mainly suffering from
memory loss, the so-called Wernicke Korsakoff disease. The resistance
continues both inside and outside of the prisons. We continue to give
martyrs.
The numbers and data relating to the balance of our resistance, and the
stages through which our resistance has gone through, has now entered
into the fourth season. This in itself is enough to show the dimension
of the oppression and the size of the resistance.
To all those who are against imperialism, fascism, isolation and
torture. The F-type prisons are part of the plan, which is being used
by America and Europe to destroy the resistance and the revolutionaries
against imperialism in all countries, and to make reality their plan of
globalization and the New World Order.
Our resistance is against this plan, the IMF, the World Bank and the
colonialisation that is presented under the name of globalisation. For
this reason this resistance belongs to all of us. For this reason
isolation is a matter of concern for the whole world. Therefore we are
calling upon you not only to give your support but also to take this
resistance as your own.
We are calling the prisoners of different countries in the world, all
anti-imperialists and progressive forces, for action.
We appeal to you to put on the agenda at Genoa the massacre in the
prisons of Turkey and the resistance, which has entered the fourth
season.
Day by day people are dying inside and outside of the prisons.
Capitalism, the IMF and isolation are killing. There's not even a second
to loose. Imperialism wants to split, divide and weaken us. We call all
people of the world, all progressives, anti-fascists and
anti-imperialists to unite and to destroy this game, and to support and
enlarge together all kinds of resistance against tyranny.
REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE'S LIBERATION FRONT
Detention at the action against F-Type Prisons
Police forces attacked against 1500 people gathered in order to file an object petition against Justice Minister H. Sami Turk on the grounds that he caused the dying on death fast and banned meetings. More than a hundred demonstrators were taken under detention.
About 1500 people from IHD (Human Rights Association), HADEP (People's Democracy Party), ODP (Freedom and Solidarity Party), SIP (Socialist Power Party), DISK (Federation of Revolutionary Unions), KESK (Federation of Public Employee's Unions), CHD (Modern Lawyers Association), TAYAD and TUYAB (associations of families of prisoners for cooperation) filed an objection petition against Justice Minister H. Sami Turk on the grounds that he caused the dying in prisons and banned the meeting called "Respect to Right to Life, Stop the Dying" which was planned to be held yesterday. Attacking against the demonstrators both before and after of the action, the police forces detained more than 100 activists.
Turk: No more F-Type Prisons
Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk who studied the conditions in Tekirdag F-Type Prison and met with prisoners claimed that they would not construct new F-Type Prisons any more.
Turk set forth that the prisons would not be isolation chambers.
The group carrying the photographs of people who lost their lives on death fast and marching from Cagaloglu to Court House in Sultanahmet were obstructed by police forces. Then a delegation including Chairwoman of IHD Istanbul Branch, Eren Keskin submitted the objection file against the Justice Minister to Istanbul Chief P