JINHA

ISTANBUL – 16-year-old SılaAbalay has gone on a hunger strike in Bakırköy Women's and Children's Prison. Sıla, on hunger strike since April 2, is reported to be suffering health problems.

Sıla was arrested in a house raid on her family's home in theOkmeydanı neighborhood of Istanbul, on April 1. Sıla was arrested in the wake of the Istanbul hostage crisis, when two members of the leftist group DHKP-C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front) took hostage a prosecutor in the untried case of the police slaying of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, like Sıla an Okmeydanı resident. The state has charged Sıla with "membership in an illegal organization."

Reporter MeryemYıldırımsays that guards moved Sılato a single-person cell after she began her hunger strike 16 days ago, demanding to be relocated from the barracks she was placed in. She argued that if the state considered her old enough to arrest and try as a political prisoner, she should be relocated to the political prisoner barracks.

Sıla's lawyer, NaciyeDemir, says Sıla is being tried for attending a press announcement, which the state is calling an illegal assembly.Sıla, already thin, has lost weight. Guards have also given Sıla death threats, according to Naciye.

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