Turkish police teams used force to enter the Diyarbakır offices of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the early hours of Saturday and detained seven party officials on a hunger strike, the Mesopotamia news agency reported.
There were 10 people inside the party building who were on a hunger strike demanding an end to the “isolation” of imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan.
Police teams broke the outside door of the building as well as its windows to get inside.
An HDP deputy in front of the building told the police officers that there is no law that prohibits people from going on a hunger strike, but the police said they were given an order to intervene with the hunger strikers.
Hunger strikers Sevican Yaşar, Yusuf Ataş, Salih Tekin, İsmet Yıldız, Salih Cansever, Bilal Özgezer and Abdulhalik Kurt were detained by the police.
There are also four HDP deputies who are currently on a hunger strike for the improvement of Öcalan’s jail conditions.
The deputies are protesting Öcalan’s inability to speak with his lawyers, referring to it as his “isolation.”
HDP deputies criticize the silence in society in the face of hunger strikes that have been increasing among Kurdish politicians across the country.