Kurdish MP Leyla Guven on hunger strike in Turkey taken to hospital, Diyarbakir, Turkey Kurdistan, February 13, 2019. Photo: ANF
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— A Kurdish lawmaker who has been on hunger strike in Turkey for more than three months, was taken to hospital on Wednesday but she has refused any treatment, a hospital source said.
Leyla Guven, freed last month by a court in the Kurdish Diyarbakir city, started a hunger strike on November 8, 2018 while in jail to protest against the prison conditions of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The 55-year-old member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was taken to hospital after her blood pressure went up and she complained of chest pain, the hospital source told AFP.
“Her heartbeat is being monitored at the hospital in the intensive care unit,” the source said. “She is conscious and refuses to take any treatment.”
Guven was imprisoned last year for criticising Turkey’s offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) in northern Syria which Ankara brands as “terrorists” linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), co-founded by Ocalan.
After her release pending trial, the lawmaker was taken home but vowed to carry on with the strike until the government allows Ocalan to hold regular meetings with his lawyers and family members.
Ocalan has not had access to his lawyers since 2011.
Her action is being supported by over 300 prisoners across Turkey in a show of solidarity, according to the HDP.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Ocalan, who was arrested 20 years ago, is serving a life sentence on Imrali island, close to Istanbul.
Kurds see Ocalan, called “leader of the Kurdish people” by his followers and “head of the PKK terrorist organisation and separatist leader” by Turkish officials and media, as a living symbol of the Kurdish cause in Turkey.
Fighting in the region intensified between Turkish security forces and the PKK after the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015.
His PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States.
The authorities allowed the PKK leader to meet his brother Mehmet last month, the first visit in over two years.
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