Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Group deputy chairman Ýdris Baluken asked for a Parliamentary Inquiry in order to investigate the ongoing indefinite and non-alternate hunger strikes staged in Turkish prisons in protest against the isolation imposed on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan for over 430 days now.

BDP Group deputy chairman Baluken asked Speaker’s Office for a parliamentary investigation to determine the measures to be taken concerning the actions prisoners have staged in protest against the failure of resolution of problems in Turkish prisons and the fulfillment of their political demands.

To indicate the necessity of the inquiry on prisoner protests so that the deaths in the past shall not be repeated, Baluken reminded of the 1980 period when prisoners in Diyarbakýr Prison carried out actions, including setting themselves on fire, with an aim to prevent the expansion of inhuman treatments to other prisons and to expose the suppression of their political demands with anti-democratic and unlawful methods.

Baluken remarked that the prisoners on an indefinite and non-alternate hunger strike since 12 September 2012 demand the ending of the severe isolation of the Kurdish leader, fulfillment of necessary actions to make sure that Öcalan can play his role in finding a solution to the Kurdish problem and the removal of all obstacles to mother-tongue education.

BDP Group deputy chairman ended underlining that the political demands strikers put forward with their act could pave the way for social and political peace in Turkey.