March 18, the date of establishment of the Paris Commune, has been named as “International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners” and has celebrated around the world since the 1920s with the decision of the Comintern. Prisons are the witness to the toughest struggles between revolution and counter-revolution. Each year, anti-fascists, revolutionaries protest all over the world, speak up for the revolutionary prisoners in order to show solidarity with their resistance for freedom.
The conflict between the bourgeoisie and the revolutionaries continues in all forms throughout the world. Jails in Turkey bear witness to the patriotic, revolutionary and communist prisoner’s resistance. Since 2015, political prisoners have been the special target within the scope of the concept of physical, ideological and psychological pressure under Erdogan’s fascist regime. The detention of the police and the gendarmerie is followed by the terror of the courts of arrests and unlawful long-heavy prison sentences. As a result of that, people are always afraid of detention and imprisonment, on the other hand, these enforcements aim to dissolve both individual revolutionary pioneers and their collective organizations by seizing all kinds of human rights gained in prisons. They are trying to turn the jails into centres of torture. Thousands of women and men political prisoners are held in inhumane conditions in Turkey jails. 780 children grow up in prisons with their mothers. There are 1564 sick prisoners and 591 of which are serious. The seriously ill prisoners who have not been released are left to die.
The Turkish state has always implemented the rules of an undeclared war on revolutionary prisoners. The change in the execution law that came into force in 2020 to release the murderers is also a reflection of the same mentality. There are new violations of rights against political prisoners with this law; new sanctions such as silencing the press, imposing disciplinary penalties and forcibly intervening in hunger strikes were introduced. Recently, isolation and violations of rights have been intensified by using pandemic as an excuse.
There are many immigrant revolutionary prisoners in the prisons of imperialist Europe. Political prisoners are isolated in European prisons. The Greek revolutionary prisoner Dimitris Koufondinas’s hunger strike against isolation reached 70 days and he is about to reach the limit of losing his life. Human rights activist and journalist Mumia Abu Jamal, former spokesperson of the Black Panther Party, has been in prison in the US for nearly 40 years for the death penalty for killing a police officer. Jamal’s health condition deteriorated gradually, he caught corona and his health condition even worsened and his life was endangered. Jamal, who was taken to the infirmary as a result of the reactions, can only be treated after he is released. Hunger strikes continue in Turkey and Kurdistan prisons against the isolation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. The solidarity with the revolutionary prisoners for the ongoing resistance in prisons is the duty of socialists, revolutionaries, even everyone who want a free and dignified life for everyone. The feeling of loneliness and pessimism that the imperialist culture wants to create, can be destroyed by insisting on the values of political pioneers and the rights of revolutionary prisoners, as their voice outside. It is precisely for this reason that we must improve the solidarity with revolutionary prisoners nowadays. We must make their voices and demands heard to immigrants, workers, institutions. Dedicate one day each year, March 18, to solidarity with revolutionary prisoners all over the world, in memory of the immortal commune fighters. Speak up for the revolutionary prisoners that day but do not forget to remember revolutionary prisoners every day.
Voice of Political Prisoners platform (TSP)
