Turkey hunger strike toll rises

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- A woman hunger striker has become the 45th to die in a year-long protest by leftists against the Turkish prison system.

Lale Colak, 27, had been fasting for more than seven months.

About 100 inmates continue to starve themselves to death, taking vitamins and sugared water to prolong their hunger strike.

The independent Human Rights Association said Colak died in a hospital in Istanbul 10 days after she was discharged from prison because her health was fading.

She had been jailed for being a member of an outlawed leftist group, the Union of Revolutionary Communists of Turkey, or TIKB.

Militant left-wing prisoners and their supporters began the fast to protest the government's policy of moving prisoners from large wards housing up to 100 people to one- or three-inmate cells.

Protesters, joined by human rights activists and some European critics, have said the new maximum-security jails isolate inmates, putting them at risk of brutality by guards.

The government says the large wards had become virtual training camps for militants.

Leftist groups leading the strike have claimed responsibility for a number of assassinations and bombings since the 1970s. In November four bodies were recovered after Turkish police raided three homes used by leftists on hunger strike. to protest against prison reforms.

In September a suicide bomber claimed by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) killed himself, two policemen and an Australian tourist in a bomb attack the militants said was in protest at the prison raids.