The police attacked mothers holding a vigil in front of the Bakirkoy Prison to draw attention to the prisoners on hunger strikes and death fasts to demand an end to the isolation imposed upon Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Ocalan. HDP MPs Huda Kaya and Gulistan Kocyigit also supported the protest where mothers marching to the parison were cut off by the police, who surrounded the mothers, battered and detained them. MPs and lawyers were also battered as they intervened to stop detentions.

One member of prisoners’ families fainted during the scuffle. The crowd supporting the mothers were removed by the police and MPs Kaya and Kocyigit held a sit-in in front of the detention van to protest the mothers’ battery.

KAYA: WE SAW THAT THE PALACE RULE IS AFRAID OF MOTHERS

MPs issued a statement after the sit-in and condemned the violence against the mothers. HDP MP Huda Kaya said the hunger strikes have turned into death fasts and protested the battery and detention of mothers who are fighting to keep their children alive. Kaya stressed that the mothers with children on hunger strikes have been faced with police brutality for days: “Today our mothers were subjected to an attack by the facsist mind in front of the Bakirkoy prison. We saw once again how much the palace rule is afraid of the mothers. We saw once again the hate and fear they attack our mothers in white scarves with.”

“THE ACTION OF MOTHERS CAN NOT BE IGNORED”

Kaya said: “We want a way to end the death fasts and hunger strikes. Our mothers don’t have to be subjected to police brutality here. They don’t want that, we don’t want that. But we have a concern here, for life, for rights, for freedom, for the law. There is no rule of law left, but we want there to be. We want our people to see the actions of our mothers. It has come to a point where it can’t be ignored.”

KOCYIGIT: A DECAYING GOVERNMENT

HDK Co-spokesperson and HDP MP Gulistan Kocyigit protested the police brutality against mothers and said they were attacked immediately after arriving at the Bakirkoy prison: “Before we entered the area, the police started to make announcements. There was nobody to have a dialogue with. They immediately battered and detained our mothers, without a single word. What happened here today is an expression of a decaying, unlawful, illegal government.”

“THE DEMAND IS CLEAR, THE ISOLATION MUST END”

Kocyigit said: “The children of these mothers are in there. They are wasting away. We cannot expect anybody to remain silent. We condemn once again the battery of the mothers. What needs to be done here is clear: The demand should be met. The demand is also clear: Mr. Ocalan should be allowed to meet with his lawyers and family. People are on hunger strikes for this. Can we be expected to tolerate their deaths? What the mothers want to do here is to make the government hear them. To prevent the death of their children. We are calling on the peoples of Turkey and to the Ministry of Justice: Stop the deaths. Deaths are inevitable unless the isolation ends. Nobody can talk of law or human rights in a country where people are dying for a most legal demand.”

The police chief attempted to break the cameras of journalists during the protest.