HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas announces hunger strike

Selahattin Demirtaş, the jailed co-chair of the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), will start a hunger strike on March 31 to protest 'inhumane treatment', along with jailed HDP deputy Abdullah Zeydan.  

“We are going on a hunger strike starting from Friday due to the warden’s refusal to engage in dialogue, his practices outside the boundaries of law, his inhumane treatment of other inmates, and the fact that he didn’t take any well-intentioned step towards ending other inmates’ hunger strikes, which have been going on for days," Demirtaş said, in a message addressed to the HDP and the public.

"We invite the public to be sensitive regarding the ongoing hunger strikes and rights violations in prisons," the Hurriyet Daily cited him saying.