Police break up demonstration in downtown Ankara

Television pictures showed riot police beating the protesters, including old women and innocent bystanders, with batons and shields before police tanks spraying water cannons dispersed the crowd. It was unclear how many people were injured or taken into custody.

The NTV private television station said three journalists had to be hospitalized after being beaten by police. The police then stood by as members of the extreme-right wing Nationalist Hearth (Ulkucu) organization threw rocks at an office belonging to a left-wing political party where a prisoner's relatives association has been meeting in recent days.

The violent police action came a day after two police officers were killed and 11 injured when unknown attackers opened fire on a police bus in Istanbul. The Anadolu news agency reported that the Turkish Communist/Marxist Leninist group had claimed responsibility for the attack. There have been dozens of protests in support of the prisoners in the last two months but the majority, while arrests have been made, have ended peacefully.

It is believed that the violent police action was in direct response to the killings on Monday. Some 203 prisoners at 18 jails across the country are currently on a "death fast", with a number of them not having eaten anything for 54 days.

Cemaat Ocak, a member of the Prisoner's Relatives Association, on Tuesday morning told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa that six of the hunger strikers were experiencing serious health problems. She also said that at three jails, in the towns of Usak, Malatya and in Ulucanlar Prison in Ankara, gendarmes were not allowing vitamin tablets to be given to the hunger strikers.

The hunger-striking prisoners, almost all members of left-wing political groups, are protesting plans to introduce cell-type prisons which they say will result in human rights violations. Prisoners are currently housed in cells of up to 100 people. The prisoners are also calling for the scrapping of the state security court system, the repeal of anti-terrorism laws and the release of prisoners still experiencing health problems from the last major hunger strike in 1996, during which 12 people died.

(la/dpa)