Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has officially pardoned a hunger-striker recently released from prison for medical treatment, the liberal daily Milliyet, reported today.
Erdal Dogan had been released for six months to undergo medical treatment following a hunger strike lasting 168 days, but the effects of the self-imposed fast, where he and other prisoners refused all forms of nourishment other than sugar and water, had severely affected his mental faculties.
Under the Turkish constitution, the president may pardon prisoners if they are deemed to be suffering a "lasting illness". Generally this definition has been applied in cases of prisoners suffering from cancer.
A communique released yesterday by the presidential press office announced the pardon for Dogan, who was serving an 18-year sentence at a high-security prison in Ankara.
Dogan was jailed for membership of an illegal radical-left organisation, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Front-Party (DHKP-C) which launched a hunger strike in Turkish prisons in October 2000. The move has so far resulted in the deaths of dozens of prisoners.
Currently, around 170 prisoners are on hunger strike, begun in protest at new jails in Turkey, commonly known as F-type prisons, where cells for a maximum of three people replaced dormitories housing dozens of prisoners.
AFP