Solidarity with Hunger Strikers in Turkey
Massacre in Istanbul - Four Protesters Murdered by Turkish Police
Press Release
9th November 2001
Protests will take place in Dublin, Belfast and Derry tomorrow to mark this week's massacre of four protesters by Turkish police. In Dublin activists from 'Solidarity with Hunger Strikers in Turkey' will hold a protest at the GPO from 1pm, to inform the public of the attack. Similar events are organised for Waterloo Place in Derry and Belfast's City Hall.
On Monday 5th November 3,000 paramilitary police and troops attacked Armutlu with tanks, bulldozers, automatic weapons, gas and blast bombs. Shooting was ongoing for three hours. Eyewitnesses said the police were "spraying the area with gunfire and killing at will" and that a massacre was carried out.
Armutlu is a poor shanty town of Istanbul and is the base of families and friends of the Turkish political prisoners who are on hunger strike in the jails of Turkey. 41 hunger strikers have died in the past year in the ongoing protest against isolation prisons, special courts and torture in Turkey.
Four people died in the attack on Armultu. They were:
Arzu Guler , a female death faster on the 152nd day of hunger strike. She was killed by poison from gas bombs.
Baris Kas was killed by a single gun shot. He was a friend of prisoners and was visiting friends in the death fast house.
Bulent Durgac was killed by several gunshots while visiting the house. He was a former prisoner and took part in the1996 Hunger Strike, which left him handicapped.
Haydar Bozkurt set himself on fire in protest at the attack. Armed police then opened fire, after throwing stones and other missiles at him. He died soon afterwards in hospital.
Dozens of people were wounded by gunfire and are now in hospital. Some are very seriously wounded and more deaths are expected. The injured were dragged along the ground and hunger strikers, some very weak, were brutally treated. The police then burned the death fast house and destroyed other homes.
None of the hunger strikers or their supporters in Armutlu were armed, all shooting was carried out by the police and Turkish troops. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the attack in the strongest terms and demanded an enquiry.
After the attack four hunger strikers in prison in North West Turkey set themselves on fire in protest at the attack. Two died later in hospital in Istanbul.
[ENDS]
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