24th Turkish hunger striker dies

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- A Turkish prisoner has died on the 240th day of a hunger strike, a human rights group said.

It raises the total number of deaths since the protest began late last year to 24, Reuters reported.

Several hundred inmates and some members of their families, mostly extreme leftists, are on hunger strike.

They are protesting at new jails with small cells that they say make them vulnerable to isolation and abuse by guards.

They have survived so long by consuming sugared and salted water and vitamins.

Turkey says the new F-type jails, with cells for up to three inmates, meet European standards.

It insists it was essential to break the stranglehold of extremist political groups and organised crime gangs in the old-style dormitory wards.

A spokesman for Turkey's Human Rights Association (IHD) said Veli Gunes, an inmate of Izmit F-type prison near Istanbul, died on Saturday night.

He was awaiting trial for damaging property during a violent crackdown on jails across the country in December in which 30 prisoners and two paramilitary police died.

The jail raids were aimed at ending the hunger strikes and enforcing transfers to the new style jails.

European parliamentarians have urged Turkey to do more to bring the hunger strikes to an end, but the government has said it refuses to negotiate with "terrorists."

Reuters reported that most of those on hunger strike belong to far-leftist groups, and Ankara says the protesters are being manipulated by the leaders of the groups outside the jails.

European Union leaders said on Saturday that Turkey, a candidate for membership, had to do more to clean up its human rights record before it could move closer to joining the bloc.

A visiting delegation of European parliamentarians said earlier this month that Turkey should stop jailing people for what they say or write.