DEVRİMCİ HALK KURTULUŞ CEPHESİ

Date: November 30 | 2002 Statement: 284

The 100th death in the resistance to torture and solitary confinement in the F-Type prisons

WE REMIND THE AKP GOVERNMENT OF THE REALITY IN TURKEY!

WE REMIND THOSE WHO ACT AS THOUGH THEY KNOW NOTHING THAT THERE IS TORTURE AND DEATH!

ARE YOU STILL ABLE TO LOOK AWAY?

Turkey is counting its dead.
All those who do nothing but count and look on passively are dead themselves.
Government, opposition, democratic mass organisation, trade union, political party, association, chamber, intellectuals, scientists, it is not death you are measuring but rather your own disgrace. It is the reality of oppression that you are counting.

It is the reality of Turkey.
Even if you ignore everything, counting is enough to express the fact that Turkey is a land of oppression. Even if you change everything else, the increase in this number is enough to show that Turkey continues to be a land of oppression.
That is the reality shown by Zeliha Erturk, the 100th life taken from us by the F-Type Prisons.

HOW LONG WILL THE AKP (Justice and Development Party, an Islamist party) GOVERNMENT CONTINUE TO REMAIN DEAF? In our statement dated November 19, on the occasion of the 99th martyr falling in the resistance, we addressed you with the words Those who claim to be on the side of the poor, to be democrats and who claim that they will not trample on basic rights and freedoms; DO YOU NOT HEAR THE CRIES OF THE DYING?

Since that time, 11 days have passed. You did not hear the call made by the death of Imdat Bulut. Eleven days have gone by and on November 30 another prisoner died. In the same statement we also said to you: What more urgent problem has your three-day-old government to deal with than these two coffins? Yes, the number of the dead during your time in government has risen to three. And still the F-Type Prisons are not an urgent item on your list of priorities.
Zeliha Erturk was one of our young women, aged 24. Now the system of oppression, whose ministries and prime ministers office are occupied by you, has murdered her. That is the unvarnished truth. The F-Type Prisons have murdered for the past 772 days. That is the unvarnished truth. The number of the dead has risen to 100. What words can suffice to cover up this reality?

You cannot keep your promise to show no tolerance to torture by using phrases like torture is widespread but not state policy. As long as the reality of isolation in the F-Type Prisons persists, everything you say in relation to human rights and fundamental rights and freedoms will merely be a LIE.

If you also say, It is state policy and comes from the MGK (National Security Council), there is nothing we can do against the MGK then spell it out loud and clear. Spell out loud and clear that you are not the real government. But if you say, We are the government, and then say, We will continue to let death and murder happen in the F-Type Prisons, then admit that openly. Say it, so that it is clear who the oppressors are and who the oppressed are.

IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO RESIST AND WHO ARE DYING!

The Zelihas and Imdats are the daughters and the sons of the people who have nothing We are those, whose bread has been taken away. We are some of the countless people whose rights and freedoms have been confiscated. We are those who hopes and dreams for the future they want to destroy. They are trying to destroy our thoughts and our beliefs so that 70 million people can be subjected to the IMF, hunger and oppression. No excuses and no demagogy about terrorism can alter the fact that here an attempt is being made to break the people, and that those who resist are also the people.

Zeliha Erturk started the Death Fast on June 3 (2001) as a resistance fighter in the 5th Death Fast Team in Kartal Prison. Zeliha was born in 1978 in Istanbul. Originally she came from Sivas-Zara (central Turkey). She was a Kurdish Alevi. As a child of a poor family she was not able to continue school after primary. She worked during her childhood and youth. She did various types of work, from tailoring to selling. She got to know the revolutionaries and fascism during the Gazi Uprising (1995, in a district of Istanbul where people rose up to oppose a fascist provocation). She was 17 at the time.  She lived in a different area but often came to Gazi because she had relatives there.

There she got to know the supporters of the Front, saw their publication for the first time and immediately became familiar with it. In Gazi she kept watch on the barricades. She buried those who were murdered by fascism. Then she sought out and found the Front supporters in her own district. She started work by taking part in activity in the neighbourhoods.

During the 1996 Death Fast she was detained and tortured. She was taken to the cell-type prison in Eskisehir. So in 2000, when discussion of F-Type Prisons and the resistance started, she stated in a letter she wrote as a Death Fast volunteer:

“In 1996 when the Death Fast began, I was not in prison. After a time I joined the resistance in the Eskisehir Coffin Prison. Finally we gave 12 martyrs and achieved victory. In this period I did not truly understand the Death Fast. But in my minds eye I always had the image of Berdan (Berdan Kerimgiller, one of the martyrs in the 1996 Death Fast). Now it is our turn. We face the same attacks again. We will oppose it with our bodies, just like the 12.”

One body after another has resisted for 772 days.

100 bodies slowly wasted away.

They are not just a number: they are the dignity of this country. They are the dignity of humanity. For 772 days they have written a legend with their death in a hell created by oppression. This is one of the most splendid epics that humanity has written about its beliefs, ideals and thoughts. It is an epic of billions of body cells that have wasted away over 772 days and a hundred lives that have been given up. We are resisting for our beliefs and our convictions, and to keep alive the hope of our people for independence, freedom, bread and justice. The oppressor cannot destroy our beliefs. The oppressor is the murderer of these 100 people.

Those who want to destroy our thoughts are in the service of imperialism and fascism.

Those who continue the policies of the F-Type Prisons and isolation are responsible for our murder.

Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Cephesi

(Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front)

2002.11.30