The World - News from Aug. 14, 1989

Turkey, faced with a hunger strike by nearly 2,000 inmates protesting harsh prison rules, will abolish physical punishment in jails, Justice Minister Oltan Sungurlu said. “Physical punishments with disciplinary purpose such as chaining of prisoners, solitary confinement in dark cells and bread-and-water diets are being abolished,” he told the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency. The hunger strikes spread to 12 jails in Turkey after the recent deaths of two imprisoned Kurdish activists after a five-week fast. The prisoners are protesting an August, 1988, decree that introduced harsh disciplinary measures, including restrictions on visits, food packages and reading material, adopted after a series of mass jailbreaks.