TURKEY/GERMANY: TURKISH POLICE BURY PRISON HUNGER STRIKE VICTIM AS SUPPORTERS OF THE DEAD MAN DEMONSTRATE/STUDENTS IN GERMANY JOIN THE HUNGER STRIKE IN SOLIDARITY

Record ID: 342128

  • Title: TURKEY/GERMANY: TURKISH POLICE BURY PRISON HUNGER STRIKE VICTIM AS SUPPORTERS OF THE DEAD MAN DEMONSTRATE/STUDENTS IN GERMANY JOIN THE HUNGER STRIKE IN SOLIDARITY
  • Date: 26th July 1996
  • Summary: ANKARA AND ISTANBUL, TURKEY/ DARMSTADT, GERMANY (JULY 26, 1996)(RTV - ACCESS ALL) ANKARA, TURKEY 1. LV/SV POLICE BARRICADE IN FRONT OF CHANTING CROWDS (2 SHOTS) 0.17 2. LV SPEAKERS ADDRESS CROWDS (3 SHOTS) 0.38 3. LV ARMOURED VEHICLES SURROUND DEMONSTRATORS 0.46 ISTANBUL, TURKEY 4. SV/CU DAMAGED POLICE CAR (3 SHOTS) 0.56 5. SV POLICE EXAMINE INTERIOR CAR 1.03 6. SLV AMBULANCE ARRIVES AT HOSPITAL 1.19 7. SV WOUNDED MEN TAKEN FROM AMBULANCE (2 SHOTS) 1.37 8. SV FIRE ENGINE 1.40 9. LV FIREMEN BATTLE BURNING SHOP (2 SHOTS) 1.50 10.SLV/SV RELATIVES AND SUPPORTERS OF HUSEYIN DEMIRCIOGLU MARCHING (2 SHOTS) 2.03 11 SV WIFE OF DEMIRCIOGLU NALAN SPEAKING TO PRESS (TURKISH) (2 SHOTS) 2.09 12.LV/TV POLICE BEAT DEMONSTRATORS, ARRESTS (3 SHOTS) 2.27 DARMSTADT, GERMANY (JULY 26, 1996) 13.LV/CU STUDENTS SITTING ON FLOOR AND WRITING HUNGER STRIKE ON ARM BANDAGES (2 SHOTS) 2.40 14.SV HUNGER STRIKERS SITTING ON MATTRESSES (3 SHOTS) 2.56 15.CU SIGN HUNGER STRIKE DAY 15 PAN TO HUNGERSTRIKERS 3.05 16.MCU TOPCU PARIK, TURKISH STUDENT AND ORGANISER OF PROTEST SAYS: 'WE WILL KEEP UP THIS HUNGER STRIKE AS LONG AS THE STRIKE CONTINUES ON IN TURKEY. WE DON'T JUST WANT TO INFORM THE PUBLIC OF THE STRIKE, WE ALSO WANT TO FORCE THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT TO MAKE CHANGES.' (GERMAN) 3.29 17.LV/SV STUDENTS COLLECTING SIGNATURES (3 SHOTS) 3.52 18.PHOTOGRAPHS OF ALLEGED VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE IN TURKEY 3.56 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 10th August 1996 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ANKARA AND ISTANBUL, TURKEY/ DARMSTADT, GERMANY
  • City:
  • Country: EUROPE Turkey Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA5Q09DVTPH8PYYSPD3EW7MO71Q
  • Story Text: INTRO: Turkish police have buried one of six victims of a two-month prison "death fast" as supporters of the dead man scuffled and chanted behind a wall of riot police. Human rights workers said 67 fellow hunger strikers protesting against prison conditions were in critical condition.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------- Authorities buried leftist Huseyin Demircioglu at the Karacaahmet cemetery on Friday (July 26) under the guard of riot police, ignoring demands from family and friends that he be interred near his home in Gazi, the city's left-wing stronghold.

    Seventeen people died in days of rioting through Gazi in March, 1995, and police seemed eager to avoid any repetition of those scenes.

    "The state kidnapped our martyr...The state buried him," his wife, Nalan, said outside the cemetery. "We did not consent." Nalan and a dozen other relatives accompanied the body to the grave. About 40 supporters scuffled with police in the street, chanting: "Revolutionary martyrs are immortal".

    Around 300 leftist inmates have pledged to fast to the death over their demands for an end to the dispersal of leftists to jails across the country and the closure of Eskisehir prison, where they claim they are maltreated.

    Turkey's powerful National Security Council said on Thursday night it had agreed steps to tackle the hunger strike.

    However, it gave no details and there was scant evidence on Friday the government had modified a hands-off attitude that has prompted growing criticism of Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, in power for only four weeks.

    Justice Minister Sevket Kazan, under pressure to resign, told the state-run Anatolian news agency that prison inmates had weapons and were trying to draw the security forces into an operation. He said force-feeding inmates could provoke riots.

    Also on Friday, a group of Turkish students at a German college vowed to keep up a hunger strike in solidarity with the hunger strikers in Turkish prisons.

    "We will keep up this hunger strike until there are changes in the Turkish government," said Topcu Parik, a Turkish student participating in the action at the Technical College in the city of Darmstadt, about 50 kilometres south of Frankfurt.

    Parik and nine other activists participating in the protest have spent the week in a 25-square meter student union office, confining themselves to drinking water and tea and sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

    Six of them -- two ethnic Kurds, three Turks and a German -- started their protest on Monday and four more protestors joined them on Wednesday (July 24).

    The activists include five women and five men and range in age from 16 to 40. One was taken to hospital on Thursday night for treatment after spitting up blood but later returned to re-join the hunger strike.

    Officials at the college, which has 16,000 students, have met with the activists seeking to persuade them to stop but have not yet ordered the protest to end.


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