On Wednesday morning, Halil Güneş was found dead in his solitary cell in Diyarbakir (Amed) high security prison and 56-year-old Abdülrezzak Şuyur died in Şakran prison in Izmir. Both had been imprisoned since 1993 and were suffering from serious illnesses. On December 9, Kurdish political prisoner Garibe Gezer died suspiciously while being held in solitary confinement in a cell.

In a statement, the PKK-PAJK Prison Committees stated that the increasing deaths in prisons are a part of the policy of genocide against the Kurds.

The statement published on Thursday is as follows;

“The attacks of the fascist genocidal AKP-MHP government against our people and our values ​​are continuing blatantly. In order to cover up its defeat in the Medya Defense Zones, the Turkish government has aggravated the isolation of Kurdish leader Öcalan, committed all kinds of war crimes with chemical attacks against the guerrillas, targeted the leaders of the autonomous administration in Shengal and Rojava and killed patriotic revolutionary prisoners in prisons. These attacks, triggered by its defeat in the face of our struggle, will not prevent the collapse of fascism. On the contrary, they will sharpen our hatred and anger and will remain instrumental in expanding our struggle worthy of our martyrs.

One of the most brutal kinds of this fascist aggression is carried out in prisons. All kinds of torture and oppression policies are being implemented in order to subjugate tens of thousands of our revolutionary and patriotic people who are put into prisons to complete the Kurdish genocide, to break their will and to suspend them from their struggle. The Turkish prisons have been turned into torture and revenge centres. The prisoners are murdered one by one each day in these torture centres. Last week, our comrade Garibe Gezer, and on December 15, our comrades Halil Güneş and Abdülrezak Şuyur were murdered.

The crackdown and torture against comrade Garibe had already appeared in the press. The anti-Kurdish character of the AKP-MHP government and the torture policy in prisons were combined with the insensitivity and lack of opposition by us and killed our friend Garibe blatantly. The absence of camera recordings reveals everything in a clear way. If it had been a suicide, the recordings would have been served to the press and the matter would have been closed. We are faced with a deliberate murder.  

Likewise, Halil Güneş was a comrade who experienced serious health problems during his 30 years of resistance in prison. The stance of Halil in prison was a complete sacrifice. Comrade Halil, who resisted against cancer and the torture and oppression of the AKP-MHP fascism without hesitation, was a unique person who resisted and lived in accordance with the spirit and tradition of the 14 July resistance. For this reason, he gained a great place in the hearts of all his comrades. Our comrade Abdülrezak Şuyur, too, adopted an honourable stance and life by resisting all the attacks of fascism with great determination.

All 3 of our comrades were murdered deliberately as part of the Kurdish genocide policy. These comrades were the most beautiful children of our people and the great militants of our struggle. Currently, there are still thousands of sick prisoners in prisons, and all kinds of ill-treatment, including torture, are used to eliminate them. However, it should be known that the stance and determination of these comrades is of value to us and gives us strength. We constantly ask this fascist government and its executives to account for the murders and torture of our comrades, and we will continue to do so.

We express our condolences to the esteemed families of our martyred comrades, to all our comrades in prisons and to our patriotic people. We promise that we will focus on the freedom of Öcalan and our people in the footsteps of our martyred comrades. We urge all our patriotic people to embrace the funerals of our martyred comrades and to take to the streets against these massacres whatever the cost. We call on all democratic intellectual individuals, human rights defenders and left-socialist institutions and groups in Turkey to take action against these massacres and raise their voices.”