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Turkey's jailed pro-Kurdish leader announces hunger strike

Xinhua, March 30, 2017 Adjust font size:

Co-leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas announced on Thursday that he will start a hunger strike in jail the next day to protest the "violation of rights in prisons."

Demirtas and HDP deputy Abdullah Zeydan, both in prison in Turkey's northwestern city of Edirne, said they took the decision due to "the prison's stance of no-dialogue, unlawful practices against other prisoners, and the complete lack of good intention regarding the ending of hunger strikes that have been continuing for days."

"We invite the public to display sensitivity regarding the hunger strikes and violations of rights continuing in prisons," they said in a message sent to their party.

According to press reports, a total of 13 lawmakers from HDP, including its co-chairs Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, are currently jailed and facing hundreds of years in prison over alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party which is regarded as a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Endit