DEVRİMCİ HALK KURTULUŞ CEPHESİ
Date: February 29, 2004| Statement: 323
108 people have been murdered in the prisons!
HOW LONG WILL YOU CONTINUE TO LOOK AWAY FROM IT?
Neither isolation, nor forcible medical intervention, nor censorship could nor can remove the right to resist!
They burned us alive but could not defeat us. They put us into solitary confinement yet they could not intimidate us.
They have inflicted lasting damage on hundreds of us, but we would not let ourselves be deterred.
We have given 107 martyrs, yet we did not die. When placed in isolation conditions, we resist. Muharrem Karademir is the 108th martyr in our resistance to the F-Type prisons, isolation and censorship.
What does it matter if those who want to cover up the death of 107 prisoners and try to keep the 108th death a secret resort to terrorism once again and try to silence those who say “108 people have died in the prisons! Have you heard about it?”.
They are helpless in the face of the unbeatable, unbreakable will of people like Muharrem.
Is there a voice more powerful than the slogans Muharrem Karademir shouted after he set himself on fire?
Can there be a more concrete, clear and obvious reality than 108 deaths?
Our comrade Muharrem Karademir, who tied on the red headband and laid down to die on October 20, 2003 in Kandira Prison as part of the Gultekin Koc Death Fast Team (the 10th Death Fast Team), set himself on fire on February 27, 2004, the 130th day and was martyred. Can there be stronger willpower than that of those who face death, stick to their beliefs and are armed with their love for the people and homeland?
THERE ARE PEOPLE LIKE MUHARREM IN THIS COUNTRY! He is the 108th martyr in the resistance to isolation!…
There has not been a resistance in either the world or in our country like the resistance going on in the prisons.
This struggle started long before the prisoners’ Death Fast. It attained a new dimension with the beginning of the Death Fast on October 20, 2000.
The atrocities and the resistance of December 19-22, 2000 were a sign that this struggle would bear no comparison with any others.
Since then, three and a half years have gone by. Massacres, torture, physical and psychological damage, punishments, threats, blackmail and censorship… The government used every kind of fascist method during these three and a half years.
The slaughter carried out in 20 prisons, tearing down and burning everything, was futile. Their censorship, dozens of investigative proceedings, attacks on democratic mass organisations, closing down of institutions, as well as the terrorism practised when forcing the opponents of F-Type prisons into these prisons, were all unable to break the resistance.
Neither the Ecevit government nor the government of Tayyip Erdogan could create the silent, intimidated Turkey they strove to achieve with the use of massacres, arrests and torture.
Because people like Muharrem exist!
MUHARREM’S CALL WAS TO MAKE YOU HEAR ABOUT IT!
The AKP plays its democracy game and the prison isolation continues.
While the EU supporters, the pro-Americans, the fake democrats and the hypocritical left play the democracy game of imperialism and the oligarchy, we continue to die and continue to resist.
That is essentially what politics in Turkey amount to. Imperialism and the oligarchy wanted the isolation policy which they extended to all areas of life and used in all circles to lead to a “secure” result. The AKP government has taken on the mission in the name of the imperialist monopolies of “cleaning Turkey of any opposition” through its policy of collaboration which is incapable of rejecting any of the economic, political and military demands of imperialism.
The key point of intimidating the people and silencing them is to completely silence the revolutionaries. They attempt to force the latter into isolation.
The imperialists and the oligarchy do not have any “peace” so long as they do not succeed in that.
So the most important subject in the struggle in Turkey at present is the attempt to impose isolation and the resistance to it. So the AKP government continues a policy of saying: “You can discuss everything, but not the F-Types; that is a forbidden subject.”
To prevent them doing that, we accept death and we resist.
Muharrem is a call to all patriots, democrats, our working people and all the wretched of society who are condemned to hunger and injustice by the imperialists.
NOBODY CAN ABOLISH THE RIGHT TO RESIST!
Our comrade Muharrem Karademir continued his Death Fast until the 130th day. On that day he changed the form of his resistance by setting himself on fire.
The key issue is resistance, and not giving in to isolation.
There is no limit to the forms of resistance.
Nobody can impose a limit on them. Everywhere that the enemy tries to destroy the right to resistance, the resisters, throught their creativity and unlimited self-sacrificeand resolve, will find a way to conquer the enemy.
Our three and a half years of resistance is full of incomparable examples “unique” in the annals of resistance by most peoples of the world.
On another day and in another place, the resistance can take on other forms.
The AKP government, while ignoring isolation and the resistance, puts its faith in forcible medical intervention and censorship. In the last two Death Fast Teams, almost all the resistance fighters suffered lasting damage. But neither this nor the continuing resistance were “PUBLISHED IN THE MEDIA”.
The policy of using “forcible medical intervention” to transform people into the “living dead” was implemented cruelly enough for hundreds to be left crippled and abandoned in front of the doors of hospitals.
The government, which turned prisoners into cripples and and released them in an attempt to break the resistance, boasted of having “finished off, killed and intimidated everyone, and to have prevented deaths (note: on hunger strike) one way or another…”. But while they displayed their Nazi mentality yet again, and showed themselves ruthless enough to arrest and imprison people whose health was medically known to be permanently damaged, people like Muharrem came forward and frustrated their plans.
Nobody, no force or policy can take away the right to resist.
To think that the right to resist can be destroyed means to deny the history of society.
Those who think that the right to resist can be destroyed areignorant of history, uneducated dictators, who believe that oppression will sort out everything.
That was what AKP Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Justice Minister Cemil Cicek thought.
They are uneducated dictators. The shouts echoing in Turkey “108 people have died in the prisons! Have you heard about it?” and the flames that arose from Muharrem’s body have spelt the end of their crude naivete.
MUHARREM WAS A RESISTANCE FIGHTER FOR THE POOR! TODAY HE HAS BECOME A BANNER OF THE RIGHT OF THE POOR TO RESIST!
Our comrade Muharrem Karademir was born in 1973 in Hafik village, Sivas province. When he joined the struggle in Istanbul, he worked in the gecekondus (shantytown areas), in order to turn our poor, of whom he was one, into an organised force. After his activities in the gecekondus he took part in the Armed Revolutionary Units (SDB). As a fighter in the SDB he continued his struggle. He was imprisoned in June 1992. Muharrem was the child of a poor family. His brother was also a revolutionary. Both of them shared their struggle, both outside and inside prison. His brother Ugur Karademir had tied the red headband on earlier. Forcible medical intervention when he was on the Death Fast left him crippled.
On October 20, 2003, the prison administration put Muharrem in an isolation cell immediately after he notified them in writing that he “had joined the Death Fast”.
From that day on the prison administration subjected him to particular physical and psychological repression.
But he did not betray the red headband which he put on in the name of the 107 martyrs, his comrades, people, homeland and organisation. He defeated the oppressors in their own torture chambers.
POOR PEOPLE OF THE MUSLIM FAITH!
Those who exploit the people through holdings owned by religious sects and plunder our land in collaboration with imperialist monopolies can have nothing in common with faith. Nor can the bourgeoisie and the usurers be Muslims.
So when we address Muslims, we mean by that sincere working people practising a pure religious faith. We say to you, some of you voted for the AKP, because you thought you could live more freely, and that our country would become more just as a result of sharing and solidarity.
So ask the AKP; when do Muslims commit murder and cover it up?
Ask; who killed the 108 people in the prisons? Who is continuing the murder?
Ask; which holy book of Islam prescribes isolation?
Ask; in which holy book of Islam is it written that we should collaborate with the USA and Zionism who are slaughtering Muslim peoples?
The AKP markets Islam to stay in power and fill its own pockets. It works in the interests of the imperialists and the collaborationist monopolies.
That is why isolation was brought in. That is why the AKP uses religion. The workers are not impressed by the AKP government, civil servants, peasants and small businessmen are not impressed by it, it is only America and Israel who are satisfied. The European Union is happy, the imperialist monopolies are happy. The Sabancis and Kocs are happy. See how Islam is sold to the imperialists and monopolies. See it and do not permit them to play the pimp with your religion, say no to the misuse of your faith.
Do not acquiesce in the murder of a 109th person among us!
LOOKING AT PEOPLE LIKE MUHARREM MEANS LOOKING AT THE TRUTH!
Nobody can achieve anything through silence, paying no attention or saying “It is not my problem”, “It is not on my agenda”. We call on our people and the organised forces of the people once again to struggle against isolation.
So, just as we are not tired after over a thousand days of hunger, we are not too tired to make this call.
The government thought that it could destroy the resistance and the revolutionary movement with the fascist methods it has employed over the past three and a half years.
Do not make the same mistake. Nobody should fall into illusions. These three and a half years have been very instructive. The death march that Muharrem followed for 130 days is instructive, the flames that turned his body into a torch, the people who bore his body on their shoulders to Cebeci Cemetery while red flags were waved are all very instructive.
People like Muharrem come to the fore by laying down to die in order to oppose prison isolation, and by setting their own bodies on fire. People like Muharrem are immortal as a call to resist all those who want to make all our people prisoners through isolation and plunder our country like a plague of locusts. In answer to this call, the only thing we must do is to make it our banner and extend the resistance to all areas of life.
