News
Show news feed


ISTANBUL. – A group of Istanbul Armenians gathered in front of the office of Istanbul’s Agos Armenian bilingual weekly, on Thursday evening, and held a demonstration in support of those Kurds who have declared a hunger strike in Turkish prisons.  

Sasun Estukyan read a statement on behalf of those gathered, Agos reports. “We favor peace and brotherhood and we will continue to voice this. We do not want for one more person to die anymore. We do not want for the ‘darkness’ that makes a murderer out of a child [a reference to Ogun Samast, the killer of Hrant Dink—the founder and chief editor of Agos, who was gunned down in 2007 in front of his office building] to take more lives,” the statement read. 

To note, the aforesaid Kurdish prisoners, who are jailed primarily on charges of being PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) members, are on a hunger strike for already 58 days, and they are demanding an improvement in the prison conditions of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is sentenced to life, and recognition of the rights of the Kurds. In line with the Turkish Justice Ministry data, around 700 such prisoners are on a hunger strike at present.

!
This text available in   Հայերեն and Русский
Print
Photos