Six HDP members, including Amed MP Dersim Dağ, has gone on hunger strike on the 116th day of Leyla Güven fast.

HDP press office said in a statement: “Today our MP Dersim Dağ and members Bilal Özgezer, İsmet Yıldız, Salih Canseven, Salih Tekin and Sevican Yaşar has gone on indefinite hunger strike in Diyarbakır to protest the AKP government that has refused to take any step towards the elimination of isolation against Abdullah Öcalan and has remained insensitive to the hunger strikes already going on.”

The party members who started the hunger strike at the Vedat Aydın Conference Hall in the HDP Amed Province building held a press conference.

The press conference was attended by Democratic Regions Party (DBP) co-chair Mehmet Arslan, HDP MPs Semra Güzel, Remziye Tosun, Saliha Aydeniz, Musa Farisogullari, Selcuk Mızraklı and Musa Piroğlu.

DBP co-chair Mehmet Arslan, drawing attention to the isolation of Öcalan and the hunger strikes said: “The isolation of Mr Öcalan serves to shelve away efforts towards a democratic solution in Turkey. To make Turkey implement its own law was born the hunger strike led by Leyla Güven, who has been fasting for 116 days, and followed by DBP co-chair Sebahat Tuncel and Selma Irmak who are fasting for 47 days, and many activists fasting from Hewlêr to Strasburg, to many cities in the world. A struggle to end isolation.”

Arslan added: “We see that no problem can be solved without solving the Kurdish problem first. Peace and democracy won’t come to this land if the political will is rejected.”

Arslan said that the Kurdish people won’t accept isolation policies imposed on Öcalan and added: “The AKP government seeks to maintain its power by imposing severe isolation on the peoples of Turkey since it stepped out of the political dialogue in 2015.”

Arslan pointed out that the Kurdish politicians and representatives are not demanding any privilege for Öcalan but “just the implementation of Turkey’s own law.”

The mentality waiting for Kurds to die cannot be expected to understand policy, said Arslan who called on democrats and patriots not to wait for democracy to come while they expect the Kurds to die. Demands must be fulfilled as soon as possible, and the isolation on Mr Öcalan must end. Otherwise, the actions will spread.”

HDP MP Dersim Dag, one of the six hunger strikers, saluted Leyla Güven and the prisoners on hunger strike. “Leyla Güven's demands are our demands. - said the HDP deputy - Resistance is our history. This resistance will be exacerbated as long as the isolation on Mr. Öcalan ends. Whatever the end, this resistance will achieve its purpose. Long live Leyla Güven’s resistance, long live the resistance in the prisons, long live resistance.”