In Turkey, where human rights abuses continue soaring up, prisons make the headlines with hunger strikes again one and a half year after the massive hunger strike action by political prisoners throughout the country.

At the center of the action initiated by PKK and PAJK prisoners are the isolation policy against Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan and some restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 epidemic in prisons and the violations of rights endured with the new practices applied.

Abdullah Öcalan, who met government officials in İmralı Island to negotiate peace process during the period of 2013-2015, and three fellow prisoners on the island are not allowed to meet with their families, after the AKP government terminated the process.

Leyla Güven, Co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) initiated hunger strike in prison on November 7, 2019 which lasted 200 days and ended in the wake of the call of Kurdish People's Leader Öcalan through his lawyers who were eventually allowed to go to the island as the protest grew with further participation every day. Due to growing public concerns about Öcalan, who had only 5 meetings with his lawyers, his brother was allowed to visit him on March 3, 2020, and he was permitted to make a phone call on April 27 for the first time after 21 years in Imrali.

While Öcalan’s lawyers and his family were expected to meet him, the Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on September 23banned the Kurdish leader to meet his lawyers for 6 months, in consequence of the "Road Map" prepared in addition to his defense sent to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2009 with the perspective of a solution to the Kurdish problem.

This decision has been the final blow for PKK and PAJK detainees. As they had announced to the public before, the prisoners started a 5-day alternating hunger strike as of 27 November. The actions that started with the participation of many prisoners in different prisons will be taken over by the second group as of tomorrow (December 2).

There is no clear information about the total number of prisoners who engage in hunger strike due to the restriction of lawyer and family meetings because of the epidemic.

Some of the prisons where the hunger strike started and some of the prisoners who participate in the action in the first group are:

Hüseyin Koç in Samsun-Vezirköprü M Type Prison,

Erkan Bayrak in Urfa T Type Prison,

İhsan Bulut and Muzaffer Acu in Van High Security Prison,

Lorin İnanç in Bakırköy L Type Prison,

Mehmet Askeri Duman in Elazig No. 1 Penal Execution Institution,

Saadet Akın, Necla Yıldız and Arjin Yüksekbag in Ankara-Sincan Women's Closed Prison,

Mehmet Emin Ürper, Şükrü Çiçek, Sabah Dayan and Serhat Çağlı in Kırıkkale F Type Closed Prison,

Nurcan Aslan, Hatice Kaymak and Fatma Bese in Mersin-Tarsus T Type Closed Women's Prison,

Sertaç Kılıçarslan, Ozan Alpkaya and Abdullah Günay in İzmir-Kırıklar F Type Closed Prison,

HDP former Diyarbakır Deputy Çağlar Demirel and Seher Orçu in Kocaeli-Kandıra No.1 F-Type High Security Prison.

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