All PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) prisoners in Turkey jails started a two days hunger strike against the attacks on Kurdish people. The inmates wanted the government to end the military and political operations right away and to answer to the Kurdish People Leader Abdullah Öcalan.

Making a statement in the name of all PKK prisoners, Deniz Kaya stated; “We are starting a hunger strike to protest against the operations and government pressure on Kurdish people and to demand an urgent democratic solution for the Kurdish problem." The statement pointed out to the increasing pressures in prisons and underlined that there are coming death and torture news from prisons every day. The statement also noted the attacks on families and demanded an end to all these actions.

PKK prisoners demanded the following points from the government; “The government must answer to Kurdish leader Öcalan and his calls and create emancipation circumstances for him. The military and political destructive operations must be brought to an end in no time. The seriously ill and child prisoners being in the first place, all political prisoners must be released. Unjust sentences and punishments must be ended. Racist and discriminating laws like TMK (Anti-Terrorism Law) must be removed. The constraint and pressures on Kurdish language-culture and media must come to an end.”

Translator: Berna Ozgencil