Thousands of people are on hunger strikes against the absolute isolation imposed upon Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Ocalan that has continued since 2015.

The hunger strike resistance is led by DTK Co-chair Leyla Guven who went on hunger strike on November 7, 2018 and spread throughout prisons in Turkey and various centers around the world.

The indefinite hunger strike by 14 activists in Strasbourg launched on 17 December 17 is on day 155. Hunger strikers’ health continues to deteriorate and doctors say the risk of undesirable outcomes continues to increase.

Doctor Fahrettin Gülşen has said that some activists have lost over 30 kg. There is an average of 19 to 22 kg of weight loss, but some have lost much more.

The most weight loss was seen in the women, he said, and this has brought on serious issues due to the body depleting. The first significant thing is muscle pain. The muscle pains disrupted sleep cycles for all activists completely. They can sleep only 3 to 4 hours a day and even if they are in bed, they spend the rest of the day awake.

The tissue loss in such a long period of starvation causes the organs to fail to work at desirable levels. The functionality loss in the digestive system is extremely high. Cardiac issues are also prominent in many activists, like low blood pressure and high pulse. The cardiac arrhythmia is also causing issues for the activists.

The 14 activists on hunger strike in Strasbourg are: Gülistan İke, Dilek Öcalan, Nurgül Başaran, Mustafa Sarıkaya, Mehmet Nimet Sevim, Yüksel Koç, Deniz Sürgüt, Kardo Bokani, Ramazan İmir, Ekrem Yapıcı, Ayvaz Ece, Mohamad Ghaderi, Agit Ural and Kerem Solhan.