Soldiers Storm Turkish Prisons; 17 Dead

Dec. 19, 2000 -- Turkish forces raided 20 prisons around the country today to end a hunger strike by more than 1,000 inmates, and in the ensuing clashes two soldiers were killed and 15 prisoners burned themselves to death, the justice minister said.

“Fifteen died after setting themselves on fire, 57 wereinjured, most of them having set themselves on fire, and two of our soldiers were martyred,” Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk told reporters outside the Justice Ministry in Ankara.

“Security forces carried out successful operations with the minimum possible harm in 18 prisons,” he said.

The deaths came after Turkish soldiers stormed the prisons throughout the country in an effort to end a 2-month-old hunger strike that prisoners launched to protest plans to transfer them from dormitories to small prison cells, where they fear abuse by guards.

The operation was launched around 5 a.m., Turk said.

Authorities said the raids were necessary in order to save lives, since many of the hunger strikers were on the brink of death after living on sugared water for two months.

The inmates include members of organized crime gangs, far leftists, Kurdish separatists and members of militant Islamic groups.

Armed Resistance

At the Bayrampasa jail, prisoners were firing on soldiers with semiautomatic weapons, Turk said. Soldiers were being dropped by helicopters onto the roof.

Inmates of Umraniye were also putting up an armed resistance, Turk said. Soldiers reportedly were breaking through the walls to overpower the inmates and at least five soldiers were said to be injured.

A fire was also reported in the prison of the southern town of Ceyhan and several injured prisoners were taken to hospital in the western city of Aydin.

Past raids in the dormitories of political prisoners have led to deaths and violent clashes with inmates armed with smuggled guns and makeshift flame-throwers.

Inmates refused to be transferred to new prisons with cellsdesigned to hold one to three prisoners, arguing they would be more vulnerable to abuse. Human rights groups say torture is common in Turkish prisons.

Prisoners currently stay in wards that hold up to 100 people. The government says it cannot control the large wards, which political groups run like indoctrination centers. Riots and hostage-takings are not uncommon.

Inmates Refusing Medical Treatment

The Turkish Interior Ministry said it had ended the protests at nine of the jails and taken 246 hunger-striking inmates to hospitals for treatment.

“You cannot expect the state to watch people being left to die, that is why an intervention in 20 prisons was inevitable,” Turk told reporters.

But many of the hospitalized prisoners were refusing treatment, said Fusun Sayek, head of the Turkish Physicians’ Association. The association, which includes many of the country’s doctors, says it is unethical to treat people against their will.

The raids were launched after mediation failed to end the hunger strikes and as the health of the fasting prisoners rapidly deteriorated.

Can Dundar, a journalist who took part in the mediation efforts, said the inmates were expecting the raid.

The government indefinitely postponed plans to transfer the inmates more than a week ago, but failed to persuade the prisoners to give up their strike.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said every effort was being made not to harm the prisoners, but denounced their demands and the fast as a means of advancing them.

“This operation is an effort to save the terrorists from their own terrorism,” he told reporters in Ankara today.

He said his government would not back down from plans totransfer prisoners to small “F-Type” cells, though officials said last week the hunger strike had delayed the project.

Human Rights Record Under Fire

For years Turkey has been sensitive to criticism from the West about its poor human rights record, especially toward the Kurdish minority. Turkish governments have, in the past, been severely criticized by human rights groups for the faults in its judicial and prison systems. The new jails being built were meant to conform with European Union standards, Turkish authorities said.

The raids came days after the government decided to send a limited amnesty law, which could halve the prisonpopulation, back to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. He had rejected it as unjust and divisive last week.

The government has long pushed for an amnesty to ease crowding in the country’s turbulent jails, but has been slowed by controversy over draft laws that would have freed organized crime figures and right-wing prisoners while leaving leftists behind bars.

Relatives of leftist prisoners gathered outside Bayrampasa and denounced the raids, the transfer plan and the amnesty law. “The goal is clear: They want to kill my children,” one woman said. Witnesses said police detained many relatives.

Twelve leftist inmates starved themselves to death in 1996 before the government abandoned plans to transfer them from wards.

ABCNEWS.com’s Sue Masterman in Vienna, Austria, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.