STRASBOURG, France, Sept 6 (AFP) - Judges from the European Court of Human Rights were to begin a three-day visit to Turkey on Monday to investigate claims by 53 prisoners that they suffered brain damage while on hunger strike to protest against conditions in jail, a court source said.
Three judges, accompanied by five court officials, were to visit prisons in Turkey's main city, Istanbul, and in the nearby towns of Tekirdag and Kocaeli. Three court-appointed medical experts were to follow, with visits between Wednesday and Saturday, the source said.
The 53 prisoners say that for the past three years they have been suffering from a loss of brain functions known as Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome, resulting from a deficiency of vitamin B1.
They were among more than 1,000 left-wing detainees who launched a nationwide hunger strike in Turkish prisons in October 2000 after they were moved out of large dormitories containing dozens of inmates and locked up in two and threes.
The hunger strikers said that putting them in cells made them more vulnerable to mistreatment by prison guards. They also alleged that keeping them locked up while on hunger strike was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
More than 60 prisoners died during the protest.