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| The Grand Turk | |
| Thousands join protest in support of Turkey hunger strikers | |
| 2019-02-04 | |
Thousands of protesters Sunday joined a rally in Istanbul called by a pro-Kurdish party to show support for hunger strikes against the prison conditions of Kurdish turban leader Abdullah Ocalan. The protesters gathered at a square in Bakirkoy on the European side of Istanbul, with police tightening security measures. "I am saluting my friends resisting in prisons. They are our honor, they are not alone," Fahit Ulas, a supporter of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). "If needed we will sacrifice our bodies for this cause. We have no fear," he added. Some 250 prisoners all over ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... have launched hunger strikes in support of HDP politician Leyla Guven, who wants to pressure the Ocalan, one of the founders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul since his 1999 capture. The 55-year-old Guven was tossed in the slammer Please don't kill me! in January 2018 for her criticism of Turkey’s military operation against a Syrian Kurdish militia. Last week, a She told AFP in an interview on Wednesday that she would press on with the hunger strike at home. Garo Paylan, an HDP MP who joined the Istanbul protest, said choosing a hunger strike was a "last remedy," hoping Guven’s demand would be met as soon as possible. "We want this demand to be fulfilled before any death," he told AFP. In 2012, hundreds of Kurdish prisoners ended a 68-day hunger strike after Ocalan urged them to do so. The HDP party remains under the scrutiny of | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |