Police Move Against Turkish Hunger Strikers

aras writes: "Today Turkish police made a brutal operation at Kucukarmutlu where people continue hunger strikes against new prison system. According to mainstream newspapers police used panzers and construction machines to break the barricades in the neighbourhood and opened fire. As a result of the clashes 4 people died in the operation; one of them a woman on the 152nd day of her hunger strike. Newspapers report that she burned herself upon the intervention of police. Kucukarmutlu is a slum area where a lot of radical leftists live. People put their houses on fire as a reaction to the police; 14 people were hospitalized and 13 people were arrested. A lot of houses were damaged, one completely burned down.

By this last event the death toll in the hunger strikes is now 74. Last year police made a similar brutal operation on the prisons where hunger strikes started, during which 16 people were killed."