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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 31, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Turkish revolutionary on hunger strike
By John Catalinotto
On Aug. 18, Turkish political activist Fehriye Erdal, who has been held by the Belgian authorities since September 1999, resumed her 33-day hunger strike after suspending it for one day.
Belgian officials had promised to hold the young activist under house arrest at an unpublished location, but her address had already been leaked to the media. This put her in danger of kidnapping or murder by Turkish agents, who view her as a dangerous revolutionary.
Erdal was arrested on Sept. 26, 1999, in Belgium after police discovered a few firearms in the apartment she happened to be in by chance. The Turkish authorities accused her of being a member of an illegal organization, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKC-P).
She was acquitted in a Belgian court, and on May 26 the Belgian government decided not to extradite her to Turkey. Yet the Belgian minister of internal affairs decided to keep her in prison for the "national security of Belgium."
The Belgian State Council of Justice--something like the U.S. Supreme Court--ruled that she should not be extradited, either to Turkey or to a third country, and should indeed be acquitted. Still the Ministry of Internal Affairs insists on extraditing her to a third country and keeping her in prison until then.
Erdal has been on hunger strike since July 14. She says she is determined to continue this action until she is released. Fifteen other people joined her hunger strike in solidarity on Aug. 5.
She demands the right to choose where she will stay in Belgium so she can arrange her own defense against the Turkish state. In 1999, Turkish agents kidnapped Abdullah Ocalan, head of the Workers Party of Kurdistan, from Kenya and brought him to prison in Turkey.
Jan Fermon, a lawyer for Erdal, told the Belgian weekly newspaper Solidaire that "in this case the Belgian state is entirely following the Turkish policy of defining all communist activity as criminal activity."
Fermon continued, "Finally, Turkey and Belgium have accords though their relationship to NATO to fight against internal enemies--democratic and communist militant workers' movements. In the Erdal case, we see the direct application of these accords."
It is possible to send messages of solidarity to Erdal at Fehriye@mail.com.
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