GENEVA, April 17 (AFP) About 40 Kurds and extreme-left Turks occupied a UN
 building Tuesday to protest the conditions of political prisoners in Turkey, where 13
 hunger-striking inmates have died since early March.

 The demonstrators, most of whom remained in the hallway of the building where the UN human
 rights commission is gathered, left peacefully after the commission president, Argentine
 Leandro Despouy, met with several of them.

 After they left, Swiss police and army soldiers virtually closed off the UN headquarters, drawing
 rolls of barbed wire around the building and leaving open only one entrance and exit.

 Several protesters held up a banner accusing Turkey of the assassination of political prisoners,
 torture, and disappearances, while chanting in German "Freedom for all political prisoners" and
 "Death to fascism."

 They also distributed a leaflet which was signed "The Committee in Solidarity with Political
 Prisoners in Turkey."

 They said they opposed transferring prisoners from dormitory-style cells to cells holding no
 more than three inmates, which Turkish authorities say is necessary for security reasons.

 The hunger strike began last October, with inmates protesting the introduction of the new
 prisons.

 In an unsuccessful bid to break the protest, paramilitary troops raided 20 jails across Turkey
 last December, and some 30 prisoners died, most of them from self-immolation.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com