Political prisoners in Izmir on hunger strike

Eight prisoners have been on hunger strike in the Kiriklar prison in Buca, Izmir for almost a month. This was reported by political prisoner Ibrahim Tikan in a letter to the aid organisation TUHAY-DER. According to the letter, Sinan Durmaz, Onur Yılmaz, Abdullah Günay, Sabah Dayan, Ozan Alpkaya, Halis Dağhan, Sertaç Kılıçarsalan and Kenan Yıldızbakan have been refusing to eat since 28 November in protest against the prison conditions.

Ibrahim Tikan writes in his letter that prison conditions have deteriorated drastically since the appointment of a new warden and that political prisoners’ lives are in danger. He says that the new warden is using enemy penal law and is running the prison driven by his “hatred of Kurds”: “This is evident in all decisions and actions. He follows an ideological approach and his treatment of Kurdish prisoners is aimed at their elimination. Our lives are in danger. We don’t know what will happen to us tomorrow or the day after and we are under high tension.”

The prison warden behaves as if it were his private dungeon and justifies psychological violence with the prison’s own regulations, says Ibrahim Tikan: “If this is not stopped, there will also be physical torture. Only yesterday, an ordinary prisoner set fire to his cell next to us in protest against the oppression and violence he was experiencing. This is a concrete example of the prevailing chaos and tension.”

As Tikan continues in his letter, with the arrival of the new warden, all political prisoners who had been in A-Block for twenty years have been dispersed to different sections. Communication among them is no longer possible.