Here in Germany two communist prisoners from Turkey, who had been sentenced according to the “antiterror-paragraph §129b”, achieved victories by means of long hungerstrikes: Sadi Özpolat starved 43 days and Gülaferit Ünsal 54 days. They fought against censorship, prison clothing and intimidation. They didn’t fight in the prison alone. Together with Gülaferit 6 other prisoners starved as well in solidarity.
Taken from one of our speeches (“Network of all political prisoners”, Hamburg) in front of the Berlin prison, where Gülaferit is jailed: (29.5.2015)
“This is a draconic assault to all prisoners. More than 100 yearly commit suicide, living under similar conditions as Gülaferit, without any hope and unwilling to vegetate isolated anymore.”
9 political prisoners of armed groups like RAF, who organised collective resistance against such conditions, didn’t survive in prison in the seventies and eighties.
Solidarity in prison:
At her last hunger strike day Gülaferit even went to thirst strike to underline her stoutness to stay starving until all of her demands had been fulfilled.
She was not alone in her fight; 6 other prisoners started a solidarity hungerstrike:
Ahmet Düzün Yüksel in Ratingen prison.
Muzaffer Dogan, Özgur Aslan, Sonnur Demiray and Yusuf Tas, waiting for trial in Stuttgart.
Özkan Güzel in Essen Prison. He went on solidarity hunger strike for Gülaferit and prolonged his strike insisting on not wearing prison clothing.
These solidarity hunger strikes show collective behavior. Its a signal to the class justice, that they will fight against the assault to their comrade! The 1st May call of political and resisting prisoners was a first step of collective resistance.
Reactions outside:
Most important were several actions in Berlin. There were rallies, demonstrations and solidarity hunger strikes all over Germany and other European countries. On the positive side to mention is the intensified cooperation of migrant comrades from Turkey and the local left.
Besides digital publications, appeared articles in newspapers and left radios. Because of this growing pressure even bourgeois parties at the end of the hunger strikes intervened for the strikers.
Certainly there could have been more support.
Reasons for missing solidarity were:
Fear of recognition
The communist mindset of the striking prisoners. On Linksunten Indymedia the missing solidarity was criticized from libertarian viewpoint. Worth mentioning is though, that many anarchist comrades were engaged.
Perspective:
Even if Gülaferit’s demands were “only” humanistic, for a long time Pankow prison and judiciary ignored the hunger strike. The question is why.
The position of the class-justice can only be understood, if we bring to mind the recent role of Germany. Turkey is an important partner of Germany and NATO.
That’s why left-wing Turkish comrades will be tackled, persecuted and criminalized for fighting this partnership. Currently the progressive journal “Yürüyüs” (long walk) has been banned in Germany, even if it is legal in Turkey.
Even bourgeois institutions accuse the German government to be racist. It is well established that the government with the help of secret services supported and protected the racist and fascist terror-gang NSU for years [Neo-nazi terrorist group]. The same government, that accept the drowning of refugees at the EU-borders, those who don’t have enough to live, because their countries have been plundered and destroyed by the German government.
Germany connotes itself as successor state of the “Third Reich” and as the most powerful European power which is at war all over the world together with its allies.
Fighting against this overwhelming power with lots of actions together with the prisoners we could win in the end.
We have to control the implementation of the demands. And the fight for freedom and liberation has to be intensified here and internationalised. Solidarity with the hunger strikes, for us this means bringing the battle into the “heart of the beast”.