A very real tragedy on the doorstep of Europe
Letter in Irish News, Belfast,
17th September 2001
May I firstly take this opportunity to commend your paper on being one of the few on this island to report on a great human disaster right on Europe’s very doorstep.
The suffering to which I refer is that of the plight being faced by the Turkish Death Faster’s and their families.
At this very moment there is a human catastrophe taking place within Turkish Prisons and in Death Fast Houses scattered amongst Turkey’s most impoverished areas. Turkey, a nation long pilloried for their human rights abuses, is attempting to worsen the poor conditions currently employed in their prisons. They are attempting to close the existing ‘E’ type prisons, where political prisoners are housed in dormitories, in favour of the new ‘F’ type isolation prisons where prisoners will be isolated from their peers.
This will undoubtedly facilitate Turkish authorities in carrying out more regular and more viscous attacks on all political prisoners within their establishments.
In response to this dire situation political prisoners and their supporters have embarked on a Death Fast in order to highlight their plight. Thus far over 60 political prisoners and supporters lay dead.
Yes 60 dead.
Over 30 died on the Death Fast and nearly 30 more were massacred in prison during a state assault on the protesting prisoners. Many more are fasting to death and hundreds more are seriously injured.
Many of these political prisoners are from well known "subversive" groups such as journalists, students, trade unionists, doctors and the working classes.
Yes they are you and they are I! We must be the voices of those whose cries are muffled. I plead with your readers to write to political representatives at home, in the EU and in Turkey demanding an end to the immense suffering being inflicted upon prisoners of conscience in Turkish prisons.
Send Protest Messages To:
Mr Gunaltay Sibay
Ambassador of Turkey,
11 Clyde Road,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin 4
(yours sincerely)
S Mac Oscair, Belfast 12