Death of Tuncay Yildirim

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday March 22, 2002 19:29 by Mags - Solidarity with Hunger Strikers in Turkey thsireland at hotmail dot com

Protest in Dublin

Tuncay Yildirim is the 49th Hunger Striker to die in Turkey's Prison Hunger Strike.

A Protest will be held at the Turkish Embassy, 11 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 on Monday 25th March from 6pm - 7pm. All welcome

How to get there:
Take 7 bus from O Connell Street to Jury's Hotel in Ballsbridge. The American Embassy is across the road. Clyde Road is behind the American Embassy. Nearest DART is Lansdowne Raod.

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Death of Tuncay Yildirim

ANKARA, March 21 (AFP) - The death toll in a long-standing hunger strike by prisoners protesting at controversial jail reforms in Turkey reached 49 on Thursday with the death of another inmate, a human rights activist said.

Tuncay Yildirim, 30, died in a house in the western city of Izmir where he was staying after being granted a six-month release from jail on health grounds on February 14, a spokeswoman for the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) said.

Yildirim started fasting in July last year while serving a 12-year jail sentence for membership of a far-left underground group and was briefly hospitalized in January this year, she added.

Prisoners launched their hunger strike in October 2000 to protest against the use of high-security prisons, in which cells for one to three people replaced large dormitories for dozens of inmates.

Backed by rights groups, protesters say the new arrangement leaves them socially isolated and more vulnerable to torture and maltreatment.

The death toll from the strike includes both prisoners and outside supporters of the movement. Four prisoners burned themselves to death in support of the strike and another four people died last November in a police raid on an Istanbul house occupied by hunger strikers.