Turkey: Lawyer Ebru Timtik dies after the 238th day of her hunger strike

A Turkish lawyer that requests a fair trial after she is accused of being a member of a terrorist organization, died in an Istanbul hospital on the 238th day of her hunger strike. Friends reported that Ebru Timtik that weighed only 30 kilograms (65 pounds) when she died, which has incited condemnation from the opposition parties in Turkey.

The Law Bureau of People, which is a leftist lawyers’ organization principally concentrated on political cases of Turkey, declared on Twitter late Thursday: Ebru Timtik, who has been on hunger strike for 238 days demanding fair trial, became a martyr!.

It should be noted that Timtik was a member of the Contemporary Lawyers’ Association (CHD), which is another leftist group accused of having close relations to the forbidden Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a far-left Marxist organization. This party has announced its responsibility for many attacks in Turkey, such as suicide bombing in 2013 at the embassy of the US in Ankara that caused the death of the Turkish security guard.

Indeed, an Istanbul trial pronounced multiple sentences in 2019 to 18 lawyers, and Timtik was one of them, on the accusation of forming and running a terror group and membership in a terror group. Timtik that had been already arrested in September 2018, was condemned to 13 years and six months in prison, which push her and certain other lawyers to begin a hunger strike in February.

Moreover, Timtik had been imprisoned in Silivri which is a large trial and prison complex on the outskirts of Istanbul. Whereas in last October, an appeals trial canceled the sentences of jail lawyers

Hunger strike in a Turkish prison

So, Timtik was placed from the prison to a hospital in July, after that she turned her hunger strike on a death fast with another lawyer, Aytac Unsal.

The two lawyers were eating just liquids and vitamins, and a forensic report revealed that their condition was not suitable for a continued stay in prison.

According to an AFP reporter, the police raised security measures around the Istanbul forensic lab where a few dozen people were waiting on Friday.

Actually, the death of Timtik has been condemned by opposition parties, and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Garo Paylan reported in a tweet: Ebru Timtik was massacred by the tyrants in power!.

In the past, hunger strikes were seen in Turkey, they launched by left-leaning political teams, while in the last year, thousands of prisoners stopped their hunger strike against the conditions of detained Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan almost 200 days after launching their fast.