From: Jonupstny-AT-aol.com Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 22:13:41 -0400 Subject: France criticizes Turkish Prison Policy PARIS, July 23 (Reuter) - France criticised conditions at Turkish prisons on Tuesday, urging the government to take measures to end a two-month hunger strike by inmates. Foreign ministry spokesman Jacques Rummelhardt told a regular briefing ``Improving prison conditions in Turkey is one of the steps necessary for an improvement in human rights in general, which we are particularly keen on.'' Rummelhardt noted the Turkish interior minister's recent cancellation of restrictive measures taken by his predecessor. ``We hope that this encouraging gesture will be followed by measures of appeasement to find a way out of the hunger strike,'' he said. The spokesman made his remarks the day after some 40 demonstrators protesting at prison conditions threw stones and paint at the Turkish embassy in Paris, breaking a few windows before police arrested 10 of them. The hunger strike is becoming the first big domestic crisis facing the month-old Islamist-conservative government of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. More than 300 prisoners from different illegal left-wing groups have been on hunger strike at 33 jails since May. The prisoners are protesting at the dispersal of leftist inmates to prisons throughout the country and also demand the transfer of prisoners from a jail in western Turkey, where they say inmates are maltreated. 07:34 07-23-96 --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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