A Turkish inmate died Thursday of self-inflicted burns, the 31st victim of a nationwide prison assault by security forces last week to end a death fast by left-wing prisoners, Anatolia news agency said.
Hasan Gungormez was being treated in an Ankara hospital. He had been taken there from Cankiri prison about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of the capital after it was stormed by Turkish forces on December 19.
A two-month "death fast" organised by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), led to a four-day crackdown by paramilitary forces on 20 jails across the country which began that day.
The hunger strikes were to protest government plans to transfer prisoners from overcrowded dormitories over which authorities had little control to new, more easily monitored, jails holding no more than three people per cell.
Inmates and human rights groups claim the new jails leave prisoners more vulnerable to abuse and are designed to prevent them from organizing.
Several hundred people have been moved to three of the new prisons, but around 350 inmates have continued their hunger strike, and more than 1,650 others are now fasting to support them, Turkish officials said Sunday -- ANKARA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
