DEVRIMCI SOL / DHKP-C

… here are a couple of pieces about Turkish guerrilla organization Devrimici Sol (Revolutionary Left), later renamed DKHP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army – Front) that pertain particularly to their 1996 hunger strike … the first piece was written by Arm The Spirit and the second piece, published in Arm The Spirit No. 17, was, I think, translated by Arm The Spirit … we did publish a fair bit of info by and about  Devrimci Sol / DHKP-C, especially on our Kurd-L list … hoping to get more of it up on this blog shortly … 

United Resistance Brings Victory

12 Political Prisoners Gave Their Lives In A Death Fast In
Turkey

By Arm The Spirit / December 1996

(ATS Note: The following article was written for “Prison News Service”, a
North American prison journal. They can be reached at: PNS, P.O. Box 5052,
Stn. A, Toronto, Ont., M5W 1W4 Canada. E-mail: pns@pathcom.com)

When Aygun Ugur, an imprisoned militant from the outlawed Turkish Communist Party/Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML), died on the 63rd day of a hunger strike, Turkey was shocked. In a nation which is continually rocked by political crises and rebellion, this summer’s death fast by left-wing political prisoners posed the greatest threat to the  Turkish government in recent years. Weeks of public denial and fierce repression could not stop the prisoners, and in the days after Ugur’s death, 11 more martyrs were to fall in Europe’s most serious political hunger strike since 10 Irish POW’s died in the 1981 IRA/INLA hunger strike.

This summer’s hunger strike, the climax of more than a year of continued prison resistance in Turkey and Kurdistan, began on May 19, 1996. At the outset, more than 1,500 political prisoners took part, most from militant communist organizations such as the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), the TKP/ML, and others. Kurdish political prisoners, mostly from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), soon joined in as well, and the resistance displayed a great deal of unity among Turkey’s fractured radical-left and leftist Kurdish groups as well.

The main impetus for this latest hunger strike was the order which was issued on May 6, 1996 by the new Turkish Justice Minister Mehmet Agar. Ever since inconclusive parliamentary elections in December 1995 had left Turkey in a state of political stalemate, a shaky coalition government was eventually formed by the two main secular conservative parties, the True Path Party (DYP) and the Motherland Party (ANAP). Mehmet Agar was well known to leftists in Turkey, especially the prisoners, and his career as a policeman and politician was one marked by torture, murder, and bloodshed. Agar had served as police chief in Ankara following the September 9, 1980 military coup, and his tenure there was marked by the death of scores of revolutionaries. In 1990, Agar became police chief in Istanbul, where he continued his reign of terror. According the the DHKC Information Office in Amsterdam, police raids directed by Agar resulted in the deaths of 124 left-wing militants with another 22 tortured to death. Agar was also responsible for the murder of 8 left-wing journalists and the imprisonment of 55 others.

Mehmet Agar’s May 6th order announced the establishment of several new special isolation prisons in Eskisehir and other cities, and the planned dispersal of political prisoners to remote areas far away from their families and lawyers. This order marked the highpoint of increased repression against political prisoners in Turkey and Kurdistan.

Turkey has a long history of militant left-wing struggle, especially since the 1970s, and prison resistance has always been an integral part of movement activity. Following the 1980 military coup, when thousands of militants were imprisoned and tortured, there were several waves of hunger strikes and prison resistance, organized mainly by the urban guerrilla organization Devrimci Sol (now known as the DHKP-C) and the PKK. But the return of “democracy” to Turkey in the 1980s did not mean that prison conditions became any better. Indeed, following the launching of the PKK’s armed struggle offensive in Kurdistan in 1984 and the hanging of martial law over all Kurdish provinces in 1987, the repression in the prisons became much worse as the number of political prisoners began to rise.

In the 1990s, prison resistance continued, and one of the largest hunger strikes in Turkish history began on July 14, 1995, when nearly 10,000 Kurdish political prisoners and prisoners of war began a hunger strike to demand better prison conditions and to call for an end to the dirty war in Kurdistan. [ PLN Oct. 1995] July 14th is a significant date in history for the PKK movement. It recalls the hunger strike launched on July 14, 1982 by PKK cadre Hayri Durmus, Kemal Pir, Ali Cicek, and Akif Yilmaz, all of whom fell as martyrs in their resistance. A wave of solidarity hunger strikes by Kurds across Europe and even in America, including clashes with riot police in London and several German cities, helped draw international attention to the war in Kurdistan and to the plight of political prisoners in Turkey. But this hunger strike ended without achieving any results after 35 days. Four people were martyred in this hunger strike: Fesih Beyazcicek, Remzi Altinas, Latifa Kaya, and Gulnaz Baghistani; Gulnaz died in Berlin, Germany following a police attack on Kurdish solidarity hunger strikers.

Prison resistance spread from Kurdistan during the summer of 1995, particularly following the dramatic escape from prison on July 17, 1995 of four DHKC prisoners. Their escape led to a wave of repression against other prisoners and prisoners’ families, and resistance to state terror in the prisons eventually took the form of a nationwide prison uprising on September 12, 1995. Both Kurdish and Turkish political prisoners from several left-wing organizations acted together during this resistance. The state responded with heavy force, however, attacking Buca prison in Izmir on September 21, 1995. A raid by soldiers and police on the prison left 3 DHKC prisoners dead and another 60 prisoners seriously wounded.

Resistance and repression continued, however, and soon Urmaniye prison in Istanbul became the focus. On December 13, 1995, the police and army attacked rebellious inmates, even using helicopters, leaving 1 dead and scores more wounded. But prisoners successfully barricaded themselves and held off the state forces until another, more deadly state attack on January 4, 1996 left yet another 3 DHKC prisoners dead. By this point, a rather large movement outside the prisons had formed and began taking to the streets to demand an end to torture and death in Turkish prisons. Following the January 4th massacre, Turkish targets across Germany were firebombed, and thousands of people in Turkey took to the streets in protest. At the funeral for two of the DHKC martyrs, riot police in Istanbul made some 4,000 arrests, injuring scores of people. World-wide attention became focused on the situation in Turkey’s prisons following this, largely due to the murder by police of Emin Goktepe. Emin, a journalist for the leftist daily “Evrensel,” was dragged away by police during the funeral procession in Istanbul. His battered corpse was found in a ditch a few days later. Turkish police at first denied they had any knowledge of Emin’s murder, but overwhelming evidence soon proved to the world that Emin was the latest in a series of “disappearances” and murders of leftist journalists in Turkey. Bowing to pressure from the European Parliament, several Istanbul police officers were indicted for Emin’s murder this spring.

It was against this background of continued intense repression that the May 19th hunger strike was launched. Prisoners demanded that the May 6th order be rescinded, that all special isolation prisons be closed down, and they also demanded an end to the attacks on family members and lawyers which have become so routine in Turkey and Kurdistan. The collapse of the DYP-ANAP right-wing coalition in May changed the situation slightly, however. A new coalition, made up of former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller’s DYP party and the Islamic Refah Party, removed Agar and named Refah member Sevket Kazan to be the new Justice Minister. At this point, PKK prisoners halted their hunger strike, apparently fooled by promises of reform. But the prisoners from the Turkish left continued and indeed escalated their resistance.

The analysis by the DHKC and others proved correct, as Kazan promised to continue with the state attacks on revolutionary prisoners and to push through the new restrictions and special prisons. The hunger strike became a death fast, with hundreds of prisoners vowing to perish before they would cease their resistance. State repression was heightened, and a media black-out was ordered by the Refah government, reminiscent of the German state’s repressive measures during the RAF hunger strike in the autumn of 1977. But Turkey’s political prisoners are very well-organized and resourceful, and they managed to smuggle a video tape of the prison conditions and the death fast to the outside. When these images were broadcast to Turkey and the world, the government could no longer deny the resistance which was underway. Rallies by prisoners’ families and supporters grew. Riots broke out in the Gazi district of Istanbul and other areas as well. The state vowed never to negotiate with “terrorists,” but when Aygun Ugur fell on July 21st, the situation changed. In the following days, more prisoners died, and yet the resistance continued. By now, the bourgeois left were shocked, and even pro-state media began to question the inhumane stance of the new regime. Sedat Ergin, a leading newspaper commentator in Ankara, noted that the fast had become a “direct challenge” to Prime Minister Erbakan’s new Islamic government. On July 25th, with 8 strikers already dead, the Kurdish PKK prisoners announced that they too would join the death fast. The Kurdistan Parliament in Exile in Europe issued a declaration in support of the hunger strikers. With social discontent and protest mounting, the media black-out having failed to keep a lid on the situation, famed author Yasar Kemal and other noted human rights activists attempted to mediate between the prisoners and the state. On Saturday, July 28, 1996, the prisoners announced that the death fast was over when the government gave in to all their demands.

The government stated it would close down the Eskisehir prison in central Anatolia, it would stop the dispersal of prisoners to remote locations, end the attacks on family members and lawyers, and seek to improve prison conditions. After 69 days of determined resistance and the death of 12 prisoners, the hunger strike by Turkish revolutionaries ended in victory. But Turkey is still a country in turmoil. As the urban underclasses continue to rise up in the cities in the west and the Kurdish liberation struggles gains in strength in the east, state repression will continue, and this summer’s hunger strike will certainly not be the last in the struggle for socialism and freedom in Turkey and Kurdistan.

For more information on the liberation struggle in Turkey and Kurdistan, visit the DHKP-C homepage on the Internet: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk, or write to Arm The Spirit, P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A, Toronto, Ont., M5W 1P7 Canada. E-mail: ats@etext.org. Arm The Spirit’s homepage: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats.

The following martyrs fell during the 69-day hunger strike:

Aygun Ugur (TKP/ML),

Altan Berdan Kerimgiller (DHKP-C),

Olginc Ozkeskin (DHKP-C), Huseyin Demircioglu (MLKP),

Ali Ayata, (TKP/ML),

Mujdat Yanat (DHKP-C), Tahsin Yilmaz (TIKB),

Ayse Idil Erkmen (DHKP-C), Hicabi Kucuk (TIKB),

Yemliha Kaya (DHKP-C),

Osman Akgun (TIKB)

Hayati Can (TKP/ML)

Interview With DHKP-C Prisoners

“… the hunger strike until death from 1996, has, because of its results, achieved the character of a political victory … “

from Arm The Spirit, No. 17

In the summer of 1996, a hungerstrike by political prisoners in Turkey kept the whole country in its grip for months, determining the political agenda.

Prisoners from ten revolutionary organisations participated in the hunger strike until death, which lasted for 69 days, and 12 prisoners died: Aygun Ugur (TKP(ML)), Altan Berdan Kerimgiller (DHKP-C), Ilginc Ozkeskin (DHKP-C), Huseyin Demircioglu (MLKP), All Ayata (TKP(ML)), Mujdat Yanat (DHKP-C), Tahsin Yilmaz (TIKB), Ayse Idil Erkmen (DHKP-C), Hicabi Kucuk (TIKB), Yemliha Kaya (DHKP-C), Osman Akgun (TIKB) and Hayati Can (TKP(ML)).

Last summer, co-workers from the “Rote Hilfe” (Red Aid) from Kiel (Germany) conducted an interview with DHKP-C prisoners in Turkey. Two years after the hunger strike until death, we want to hear from them about the present situation and how their struggle is going now.

How has the prison situation been since 1996?

Before answering this question, maybe we should explain what was the goal of the hunger strike of 1996 and what a victory this action was. Then the answer to your question is easier to understand. The hunger strike until death of 1996 was not held for the recognition of limited rights in prison. Because of its results, the hunger strike also has the character of a political victory, looking at the future of the revolutionary struggle, where the heart of the struggle is formed by the existential struggle of the revolutionaries against fascism.

In those days, fascism did everything to carry out its plan of beating back the revolutionary struggle and repressing the demands of the people for rights and justice. Their plan was directed against all segments of society. As their first level of attack, they chose the prisons and the revolutionary prisoners. It has been important to beat back fascism at its first step when it increased its attacks in prison in a deadly way. The hunger-strike until death then transformed into an existential struggle, destroying the core of the fascist plan, silencing the people and the revolution.

In short, we can say our action cannot be reduced to the demand of closing the isolation prison in Eskesehir and giving back the rights for defence and medical treatment. The action, besides pushing through the demands (albeit at the cost of 12 deaths), also brought a political victory which in a very short time revealed the true face of fascism in Turkey to all the people in the world. Furthermore, the attempt to take the revolutionary struggle hostage was stopped and beaten back.

The action found a lot of resonance, it developed new values and new possibilities for the revolutionary struggle and thus it reached its goal.

Turkey is a country which is ruled by fascism. Under the conditions of fascism, the existential struggle between fascism and the revolution continues, even though the intensity of the struggle might differ from time to time. The prisons also constitute one of the many places where the struggle is waged. From this view, the revolutionary prisoners thus are a favourite target of fascism. The prisoners try to gain their rights through several actions, fascism tries to curtail these rights and then the prisoners resist this and struggle again. Fascism takes a step back and prepares for new attacks. This law is in existence since the beginning of the revolutionary struggle and it will remain in existence for as long as fascism exists. So it’s no mistake to keep this aspect in mind in evaluating the phase after the hunger-strike until death of 1996.

As the first demand of our action, the isolation prison in Eskesehir was closed. The denial of our right of defence and medical treatment, the attacks against our families, arresting them, it all clearly decreased. However, after this period the attacks took another form and they occurred on several levels. For instance, they no longer talked about a central isolation prison as in Eskesehir, now isolation cells were built in the individual prisons instead. They also denied us the right of medical treatment. Because of that, we have had more deaths recently as a result of lacking medical care. We call this silent annihilation afterwards. The relatives and family members of the prisoners are being arrested again, their visits are being prevented by all kinds of pestering and nagging. And then there are always the provocations, or something is thought of to create provocations.

Severe attacks occur again and again. On March 30, 1998, for instance. In Buca, 10 DHKP-C prisoners were kidnapped from prison. But this attack as well was beaten back because of the determined resistance of the prisoners. Even though circumstances might differ in the individual prisons from time to time, most important is our determined resistance against the attacks and assaults of fascism, to beat back the attacks, making every sacrifice necessary. Because this will be a factor which will make fascism retreat permanently, creating a basis at the same time for a fertile ground for our achieved successes.

How do you organize your activities and your life?

The reason why fascism chooses prison as a permanent target for their attacks is on the one hand the fact that we have transformed it into a place of the revolution, into schools of our party, that we don’t give up our struggle in jail, that we do not lose our faith in the revolution, and that we succeeded in becoming a moral institution in the eyes of the people. Our lives and our activities must be seen and judged in that context. The question is who poses the question of power in prison, the revolutionaries or fascism.

However circumstances in prison might be, we determine reality and the issue of power in the prisons. What we do and how we live is determined by this alone. We do not allow fascism to enter here. We see our line of life as a part, as an ideological, political and practical support for the revolutionary struggle. In that sense we also have a written statute which determines our communal life, our political education, our relations with our relatives, our principles and rules in all details. This statute was discussed and approved by all members of the DHKP-C, it’s valid for all imprisoned members of the DHKP-C. In all prisons, these common principles form the basis for our lives and our activities, naturally considering local circumstances. The common frame of mind develops in real life the collectivity on the basis of revolutionary principles. On the other hand, the collectivity strengthens our mental and moral unity in real life. It’s fundamental in our life to permanently practice revolutionary discipline, collectivism, political education, productivity and an attitude which prevents the dissolving of the revolutionary struggle.

On that basis, we are living in a community, we participate in joint political education, and we also are active culturally and in sports. Besides that there are of course the individual activities which support the struggle in a positive way. For us, such a life constitutes a shield which protects us against the attempts of fascism to destroy us, to break our conscious¬ness. Our socialist conviction, our love for our people and our country, our responsibility for all our peoples, is reflected in our entire life and it strengthens our consciousness. That’s why fascism tries to isolate us, and if that doesn’t succeed, sabotage our lives. It’s not important whether we are with 300 people or alone, our lives and our activities stem from this consciousness.

It cannot be ignored that the people are organizing on all levels. Students, workers, civil servants, the people’s councils for instance. How do you see your place in that?

The struggle inside the prisons signified important phases of the revolutionary struggle in our country. We might even say that one of the special characteristics of the revolutionary struggle in our country is the role of the revolutionary struggle in the prisons. The practice of the revolutionaries in the prisons has time and again played a determining role. on the one hand for the future of the revolutionary struggle, but on the other for the future of the individual political prisoner as well. In our country, the revolutionary prisoners are influenced by the struggle of the people, and vice versa their struggle influences the people. Our struggle inside the prisons has become stronger and broader, not for realizing more agreeable conditions of life, but rather on the basis of the revolutionary struggle and the problems connected with that. In their 30 year history, the DHKP-C prisoners have always interpreted imprisonment from these aspects. It’s important that imprisonment, keeping the body within four walls, does not jail the mind.

Under those circumstances, prisoners with a free mind can overcome imprisonment and its consequences and they can become part of the struggle of the people. Then they are able to fulfil their given tasks in the struggle with success. In our country, there were times when the struggle inside the prisons was decisive for the struggle outside. For example during the period of the coup. The junta had tortured hundreds of thousands of people outside, thousands were arrested. All – revolutionaries, democrats and intellectuals – were driven together in prison and under those circumstances, every fight for rights, every struggle for freedoms, transformed into resistance against the terror of the junta against the people. A struggle which served as a barricade against all the repression and aggression could only develop inside the prisons. After the junta had silenced the unions, associations, even the bourgeois opposition, with repression and bans, it turned against the prisoners. If the revolutionaries and their consciousness could be broken inside the prison, the road would be paved for their system of exploitation.

Therefore they started with forcing the prisoners to wear prison clothing to destroy their individuality and dignity, but the prisoners did not allow that. In January 1984, three of our comrades and a comrade from the TIKB lost their lives during a 75 day long hungerstrike, but the junta’s plan was stopped. The political victory of 1984 has, besides gaining existential basic rights, made an impression upon the people and it became a propelling force in the struggle against fascism. As our example shows, prisons and revolutionary prisoners can become of strategic importance at certain times. In that sense it constitutes an important part of the struggle in our country. The level of importance can vary, increase or decrease, from time to time, but it is never without importance. That means that the prisoners have to resist under all circumstances, they must never surrender to fascism, they must be part of the struggle. As we have said after your first question, the prisons were attacked at a moment when hundreds of thousands of people on the outside took to the streets: the politicizing of the people, the increasing level of organizing and the political struggle as a whole had to be stopped. The barricade struggle in 1995 when three of our comrades fell in Buca, or January 4 when four comrades were murdered during an operation of the security troops and when we counteracted these attacks with barricades and taking security officers as prisoners, must be seen in that context.

Looking at the present situation, the role of the revolutionary prisoners and the prisons in the struggle hasn’t changed in itself. The prisoners are an active and inseparable part in the struggle and the organizing of the people. This role can come to the foreground from time to time depending on the attacks by fascism. But just as the students, the workers and the civil servants, they are organized and function as a part of the people’s struggle. The only difference is that the prisoners are within four walls. Nothing changed in their responsibility towards the people and the country in the struggle against fascism. That is to say that they are a part in the struggle for power.

The state tries to lock up the prisoners in isolation cells. What will be the reaction of the prisoners in such a situation?

Maybe we should start with clarifying why the state wants to implement such a policy. To begin with, it has to be clear that what the state wants to force upon the prisoners, whatever they call it, whatever the form, indifferent when, is to take them hostage. Taking them hostage means to separate them from their conviction, from their ideology they have fought for until now, where they have been tortured for, locked up in prison for years, lost their comrades… in short they are supposed to betray themselves and their people.

This hostage-taking is not something physical, and it’s not the giving up of the revolutionary struggle by an individual or by one hundred prisoners, it’s rather the effect of such a process, that is to say the effect of the persons, driven to betrayal, not wanting to know anymore of their ideology and conviction, this effect upon the people and upon their comrades. When you think about that it is perfectly clear that such an effect influences the struggle negatively and that these people are being misused to destroy the self-confidence of the people. For the state, the most important goals in this are to spread mistrust, the giving up of the conviction and the goal, the breaking of their own identity. Revolutionaries have become moral standards who, whatever the form of torture and repression, will not break their word to the people, who will not hesitate to die for their conviction, thus giving the people conviction and determination as well. This constitutes a danger to fascism, therefore one attack follows the other. The demand for building isolation cells, since 1977, time and again on the agenda, constitutes the continuation of these attacks.

As you know, an isolation prison was opened in Eskesehir in 1996. Present policy is to build isolation cells in all prisons so that they all become “Eskesehirs”. Spreading the attacks aims at splitting up a given resistance because simultaneous resistance in several prisons gives a stronger position of negotiation towards the state. With the decentralization of its isolation policy, that is to say with introducing isolation cells in all the local prisons, the state aims at breaking a centrally organized resistance, at the other hand they also want to win the public opinion for this policy by putting non-political prisoners in the isolation blocks as well. But the reality of fascism and the fascist policies are manifest.

That’s the state’s calculation. The policy of introducing isolation blocks, constantly reappearing, aims at separating the political prisoners, at weakening the resistance and, in course of time, making the political prisoners into collaborators. But introducing the separate isolation cells in the prison at different times will not change anything about our central co-ordination, that is to say the simultaneous coordinated resistance in all the prisons. Even when only one of our comrades is put into isolation, hundreds of prisoners will rise up in all the prisons. That was shown on March 30, in Buca. Our comrades were kidnapped gangster-style so their whereabouts would be unknown but all the DHKP-C prisoners reacted with actions like taking the guards hostage, building barricades or refusing to be counted. The state tried to test the reactions inside the prisons but when it became obvious they couldn’t act like they pleased, the state withdrew. As mentioned before, such a retreat is only temporary, of course, and when the preparations are finished, or when a suitable situation occurs, attacks will be launched again. But our reaction will be swift. None of us will disappear into a isolation cell. We will resist, if need be we’ll die. We will break down these cells with our hands and teeth. All the DHKP-C prisoners are that determined. Given such a situation, the full attention of the country will be on the prisons, the resistance of the revolutionaries, again.

There are several forms of repression in Turkey. Which is the most problematic?

Of course there are different forms of repression in our country. It’s not always possible, or even necessary, to differentiate according to their importance because they are all based on the same, fascism. Fascism is expressed in all its cruelty in our country. Exploitation and barbarism rule on all levels. This state is a contra-guerrilla state which wages a war against the people, using the methods of the contra-guerrilla. Oppression, tyranny, exploitation, disappearances and murders, the cruelties against the Kurdish people, the burning down of villages, forced deportations, torture, fascist terror attacks, etcetera. We could list a dozen other forms of repression, from mass lay-offs to provocations at demonstrations. To see the fascist tactics on all the levels of life isn’t difficult at all. The cruelties which occurred in the gas chambers of Hitler are reflected in our country in the collections of the cut-off ears of the revolutionaries. Is it possible to make a difference between Hitler-fascism and fascism in our country, at least in the way it is applied to individuals, when we look at the way our comrades are massacred? This is the naked truth we have to face. Turkey is ruled by fascism. Fascism is a way of government which is based on repression and that influences all the practices and policies which are applied. When we speak about the different forms of repression in Turkey, we speak about fascism in Turkey, nothing else. When we apply your question to the prisons in particular, we can see many parallels. What is implemented now is a fascist policy we call “silent destruction”. How is this done? Let us give a concrete answer. As you know, the survivors of the hunger strike until death of 1996 suffered serious physical and psychological damage. Already during the first phase, the justice department refused medical treatment in the Bayrampasa prison. The doctors were refused entrance in the other prisons as well. Even the treatment in hospital of the prisoners which were near death, shortly after the hunger strike until death was ended, was hindered. Although even official forensic-medical institutions regarded the continued imprisonment of severely handicapped prisoners as irresponsible – they are still incarcerated. Prisoners who are unable to move without help, who cannot carry out their daily activities, were given medical statements which said: there are no objections to continue imprisonment. This not only applies to the participants of the hunger strike until death, it applies to all prisoners. As a consequence of this policy of annihilation, several prisoners have died lately like Umit Dogan (…) in the prison of Aydin, Kalender Kayapinar in Canakkale, Yunus Yaman in Ankara, Kazim Tunc in Nevsehir and Polat lyit in Sagmalcilar.

Another dimension of this practice is that medical treatment of prisoners, for as far as they are brought to external hospitals, is prevented by soldiers on the spot. It even goes as far that prisoners who should be medically treated are being beaten and tortured.
In short, this policy of silent destruction can be regarded as another form of the policy of hostage-taking. Thus fascism states “when I cannot kill with bombs and bullets, I’ll do it by means of illnesses”. Prison conditions create the physical causes for diseases, epidemics, completing this policy. That fascism breaks its own laws is in its nature, but this policy creates conditions which makes all shiver.

How can the struggle of the political prisoners be supported by institutions in Europe What can we do?

To begin with, we want to emphasize that all have to make the anti-fascist struggle their own, apart from the fact that this is of course the task of the people which are governed by fascism. More than ever, it’s important that internationalist consciousness and internationalism are kept alive. On the one hand, this will give us the opportunity to keep alive our mutual relations, on the other hand we can make concrete our responsibility towards the other peoples of the world.

We as DHKP-C are and always were an internationalist movement and dozens of actions and activities resulted from that. Comrades fell during these actions. As prisoners as well, we have kept internationalism alive inside the prisons. We have realised resistance and action on an internationalist level. In the future as well, we keep high this consciousness which gives us strength and pride. Therefore every form of support from people in other countries, from revolutionaries, democratic groups or individuals, is important to us and really valuable. It’s clear that the more we are, the sooner we’ll achieve freedom, the sooner we’ll achieve a world in which we can lead a dignified life.

There are concrete ways in which institutions in western Europe can support our struggle. We have always considered these kinds of international actions to be of great value. At this moment there are comrades, also from other revolutionary organisations, who have survived the hunger strike until death but who can no longer survive under prison conditions. So there could be actions to demand the release of these prisoners. Besides that, material support is needed for the treatment of our comrades. There are so many comrades who cannot be operated on because the state will not cover the costs.

The people in Europe could also unmask fascism in Turkey.

Finally we want to emphasize again that we were very glad with your compassion and solidarity.

It’s of the greatest importance that you support our struggle, that you have chosen the side of the peoples in Turkey.

We thank you and wish you good luck with your work.

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