NEW YORK, (Reuters) - A leading human rights watchdog Wednesday condemned the
siege of prisons by Turkish security orces to quell inmates' resistance to prison reforms that
has so far cost at least 19 lives.

"These deaths were entirely avoidable," said New York-based Human Rights Watch's
Turkey Researcher Jonathan Sugden, in a statement.

"The current crisis in Turkish prisons could have been solved with patience, transparency
and a readiness to consult," he said.

Turkish security forces Wednesday laid siege to two prisons -- Istanbul's Umraniye prison
and Canakkale prison in western Turkey.

Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk urged protesting inmates to end hunger strikes and
armed resistance aimed at blocking the transfer of prisoners to small cells from the large
dormitories they now occupy.

Turk said that two paramilitary gendarmes had died along with at least 16 prisoners, most of
whom burned themselves to death when security forces stormed 20 prisons Tuesday to end
hunger strikes.

Another 78 prisoners were injured in the raids that have produced the bloodiest clashes in
years in Turkey's prisons, where convicts often have more control than their jailers.

Anatolia news agency reported a 17th prisoner had died of burns in Ankara's Numune
hospital Wednesday.

"After all this violence, a positive resolution to the death fasts seems more remote than
before," Sugden said.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

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