Two More Inmates Die in Prison Hunger Strike

Two prisoners starved to death, bringing to 22 the number of inmates and relatives who have died in a hunger strike over Turkey's new maximum-security prisons.

Cafer Tayyar Bektas and Huseyin Kayaci died after fasting for 200 and 148 days, respectively, Turkey's Human Rights Assn. said. Both belonged to banned leftist groups.

The hunger strike began as a protest by political prisoners against their transfer from large dormitory-style prison wards to new maximum-security prisons with one- or three-person cells.