International Solidarity Call for Political Prisoners
The Walls Divide Us – Hunger Unites
This is a general call to all political movements, organisations, especially political prisoners networks, and individuals, to join a one-day hunger strike on May 7th in solidarity with political prisoners in Turkey who resist new types of isolation prisons, or better to say „wells“ in which they were thrown to be deprived from any human face for several years.
Currently, 10 revolutionary prisoners resists those prisons with an indefinite hunger strike.
Sercan Ahmet Arslan: 20 October 2024
Buca high security prison
Mulla Zincir: 13 November 2024
Buca high security prison
Serkan Onur Yilmaz:
10 November 2024
Antalya high security prison
Bakican Işık: 19 December 2024
Sincan No. 2 high security prison
Yurdagul Gümüş: 1 January 2025 (Mother of Bakican Isik)
Marmara Closed prison
Mithat Öztürk: 12 February 2025
Sincan No. 2 high security prison
Hasan Ali Akgül: 18 February 2025
Sincan No.1 high security prison
Ali Araci: 18 February 2025
Sincan No. 1 high security prison
Ayberk Demirdögen: 11 March 2025
Antalya high security prison
Fikret Akar: 30 March 2025
Çorlu high Security Prison
Why are they on an indefinite hunger strike?
In Turkey, new types of prisons were introduced in 2021, referred to as S-, R-, and Y-type prisons. The prisoners call them “well prisons” because it feels as if one has been thrown into a well.
In these prisons, they are buried alive: 23 hours a day in a small 3×4 metre cell alone, under constant camera surveillance, with only one hour of outdoor time, usually also alone or at most with two others. The outdoor area is located outside the cell, and the windows are secured with three bars in succession with thick mesh, allowing hardly any fresh air or sunshine to enter.
In these cells, there is neither air nor light, and the loneliness is suffocating.
Visits and phone calls are also severely restricted; only first-degree relatives and possibly one or two additional people are allowed. A dignified life is impossible in these prisons – it is a slow death.
For this reason, we call on all prisoners and political solidarity movements to conduct a solidarity hunger strike on May 7th in support of the resisting prisoners in Turkey and/or to carry out actions or record solidarity videos.
Why May 7th?
One of the hungerstrikers is Sercan Ahmet Arslan, whose hunger strike is the most advanced. We sincerely hope that he will be transferred to a prison that is not of S-, R-, or Y-type and where his comrades are located. If his demand is not met, he will reach the 200th day of his hunger strike on May 7, 2025. This call is, of course, for all resisting prisoners, some of whom started the hunger strike just a few days after him.
This policy can not be considered separately from the imperialist attacks on people’s who resist in the face of global exploitation. Each of the prisoners has his/her own story that tells about struggle for a human world in freedom, justice and equality.
And even if thick walls separate us, our hunger and our solidarity will unite us.
Long live international solidarity!
Freedom for all political prisoners!
