Erdogan hits back in hunger strike row

Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan has accused Kurdish leaders of hypocrisy by ordering jailed militants to go on hunger strike while they feasted on kebabs.

Some 900 inmates across more than 50 jails have refused food for 49 days against a backdrop of increased violence between Turkish troops and the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the United States and European Union list as a terrorist organisation.

In his first public remarks on the hunger strike, Mr Erdogan yesterday said the protesters were being manipulated by “merchants of death”, a reference to the PKK leadership and its political allies.

“As if the cruelty they commit outside isn’t enough, the terrorist organisation and groups under its control are now turning to the prisons. It is instructing sympathisers in prison to [join] a death fast to achieve its political demands,” he said. “We will not be coerced by hunger strikes.”

The PKK has staged some of its bloodiest attacks in more than a decade this year as tensions grow between Turkey and its neighbour Syria. Turkey has accused Syria of arming the PKK to punish Mr Erdogan for criticising president Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown of a 19-month popular uprising.

Mr Erdogan said members of parliament from the pro-
Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party were carrying out the PKK’s wishes in encouraging Kurds in jails to protest.

“On one hand you are eating lamb kebab, on the other you are telling those in prison, ‘die on hunger strike,’” he said.

The hunger strikers are mostly serving sentences for membership of the PKK or an allied group. The inmates are demanding better conditions for Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s incarcerated leader, the right to testify in courtrooms in Kurdish, and for the government to cease arresting and prosecuting Kurdish activists.