For 200 days now, political prisoners from PKK and PAJK trials have been on hunger strike for the lifting of Abdullah Öcalan's isolation and against the systematic violations of rights in Turkey's prisons. Several thousand inmates in 107 prisons have already participated in the alternating hunger strike in five-day shifts. The prisoner aid association TUHAY-DER from the city of Van called attention on Monday to the fact that the repression in Turkish prisons intensified with the ongoing hunger strike. "The isolation system used against Öcalan for years has spread from Imrali to all prisons in Turkey," the association's co-chairman Ümit Çapan said at a rally on Monday. Despite all the warnings from civil society, not a single step has been taken to meet the prisoners' demands, he said. Çapan advocated the mobilization of a broad social movement. Only in this way, he said, could the isolation in the prisons be broken and the injustice there be stopped.

Isolation is torture

"Isolation is torture, we have to emphasize that again and again," Çapan said at the rally, which was attended by families of prisoners, civil society activists, HDP and DBP politicians, including MP Murat Sarısaç, as well as other members of the association. However, the relevant authorities show no interest in protecting the health and lives of the prisoners, he said. “From a look at the reports on the situation in prisons in recent months, it can be concluded that the state of emergency, which was officially lifted in 2018, is being maintained in detention centers. The emergency regulations introduced in 2016 with the coup attempt have become an authoritarian tool to suppress political prisoners. In this way, the government is allowing a de facto state of emergency to prevail in correctional facilities. We demand that the inhumane conditions be ended immediately and the isolation be lifted. It is imperative that prisoners be prevented from suffering permanent damage or deaths."

Arbitrary disciplinary punishments

Çapan also drew attention to the Regulation on the Conduct of Convicts in Prison, which came into force at the beginning of the year and makes it seem impossible for political prisoners in Turkey to be released early with a favorable evaluation. “Since the regulation was introduced, not a single political prisoner received a favorable legal prognosis, on the contrary. Arbitrary disciplinary and bunker sentences have been imposed incessantly, resulting in even prisoners who have served their sentences not being released. This system of injustice must stop and violations of the law in prisons must be eradicated. Prisoners should be able to fully exercise their rights."