Inside a small concrete-block house with leftist graffiti on the walls and a nice view of the Bosporus, three women and a man are starving themselves to death. Before long, the people here expect to join the list of victims of a seven-month hunger strike to protest the treatment of leftist inmates in Turkey's prisons and to express broader social and political concerns. We have shouted slogans and held banners. We have blocked roads. But nothing has changed.
People die at different rates when they stop eating.
Doctors say the timing depends largely on metabolism, but the will to die plays a role, too. The owner of the house, a woman who had two children, died last week. She was the third resident to die, and a memorial to all three stands inside the narrow front door. The death toll from the hunger strike nationwide stood at 20 yesterday, with most of the deaths occurring among prisoners, according to Turkey's Human Rights Association. The group said 800 prisoners, relatives and sympathizers are taking little except sugared water, though only about 230 are classified as death fasters.