FIKRET (Translation): Death fasting is a process in which the body`s cells slowly waste away. Your health gradually deteriorates. After a point, it`s incurable and you go downhill. Unless the demands are met, the point we`ll reach is obvious.

This is Fikret`s 300th day without solid food. He knows he`s about to die.

FIKRET (Translation): As a lot of my friends have experienced, the nerves in my legs have dilated which causes severe pain as if my legs are being squeezed in a vice. And also as if they`re being it with a hammer starting with the bones here, as if they`re being stretched. I also know that as the moment of death approaches the blood circulation slows. My skin isn`t usually so pale.

Across Turkey, more than 100 members of outlawed communist groups are starving themselves to death. 50 people have already died in the longest-running hunger strike in history. This protest has become the latest battle between the state and the radical left.

DOGU ERGIL, POLITICAL SCIENTIST: Death is the most radical message to the society, but for what end? I mean, they even cannot express why they are dying. You know, they are dying because there are pressures on them, but this country has been under pressure all the time, you know?

Fikret and Deniz are typical of the hunger strikers. Young and from a poor background, they believe that communism will make Turkey and the world a better place. They met in prison in 1996.

FIKRET (Translation): I was imprisoned because of my political identity. But of course there is also the reality that in countries with a dictatorship, we`re talking about fascist dictatorships, regimes like that react to any dissident political views with bans, oppression and so on. Especially against us, the socialists, and the communists - those measures are much more common.

Some members of these groups advocate armed revolution and are responsible for carrying out violent attacks. Fikret and Deniz, however, were imprisoned for taking part in a street protest for free education. They were charged with being members of a terrorist organisation.

DENIZ (Translation): I wasn`t surprised, because this situation is quite common in Turkey. So every democratic demand and the struggle for democratic rights always carries the risk of detention, torture, prisons. So, in a way I was prepared for it.

Turkey has a long record of human rights abuses and a total intolerance of dissent. Radical left-wing parties are banned under the Turkish constitution.

DOGU ERGIL: The whole system is based on not to be criticised. When it`s criticised, it starts, you know, crumbling down on the edges. And they are very afraid of it, you know? Every authoritarian system is based not only on repression, but fear as well, fear on the side of the more advantaged group, who want to preserve their privileged position.

It`s this extreme repression that has led to such an extreme form of protest. Very few of those imprisoned as terrorists are actually guilty of any violent crimes.

NECATI OZDEMIR, FORMER PRISON PROSECUTOR (Translation): If we were to define terrorism, as an act perpetrated against people, or places where people live, as some kind of direct action, then the figure would be 30-35% at most. Secondly, they`re not common criminals. They haven`t committed crimes like murder, rape or robbery or similar crimes. Their starting point is ideological. And they don`t give up their ideology easily.

FIKRET (Translation): Many people in this picture are on death fasts today.

22-year-old Deniz first decided to go on a hunger strike in prison when he received a letter from his sister. The words "I love you" had been blacked out.

DENIZ (Translation): They regarded the worlds "I love you" as a reward. That`s how they put it. To be able to hear the words "I love you" you first have to give up your thoughts, your ideals, accept everything we tell you, and only then you have the right to hear "I love you".

Over the past 20 years, there have been several hunger strikes over prison conditions in Turkey. Until recently, Turkish prisons consisted of dormitory-like cells, under-funded and severely overcrowded, they often housed hundreds of prisoners. In these dormitories, members of illegal political parties were able to freely recruit and organise. Militant politics flourished. This is a funeral for a hunger striker in prison.

MOURNERS CHANT: Death fast martyrs are immortal!

The government dubbed these large cells `schools for terrorism` and claimed they had lost control of their prisons.

DOGU ERGIL: Moreover, other inmates who are brought in are socialised in those criminal groups and, rather than being "cured" you know and rehabilitated, they come out as criminals or political radicals as well.

Two years ago, the government began to build new F-type prisons, which would house only one to three people per cell. It was this decision that was the trigger for the latest hunger strike.

DOGU ERGIL: F-type prisons are the modern type prison systems, which you all have in your own countries. These are criminals and some of them really are. So what we are doing is we are doing two things - first of all, breaking down the ward system, which created that very suitable environment for the perpetration of criminality and radicalism, which is true. And, secondly, we are providing them with better physical conditions, privacy including, you know, and safety as well. You cannot argue with that. But the way it is applied, you know, is quite different, you see. Breaking the will of the inmate is one of the applications.

In the new facilities, the inmates are denied free access to prisoners in other cells. This has broken up the political families so strongly formed in the dormitory prisons. These drawings by a prisoner show the despair and isolation felt in the F-type cells.

DOGU ERGIL: That we may call social death, if they leave the group. So, rather than having a social death, you know, and live like a meatball, they just get rid of their physical existence and may opt for suicide.

Prisoners fear this isolation from their comrades will also lead to torture and harassment by the guards.

FIKRET (Translation): In the prisons, the policy of the state is to "rehabilitate people" who are inside. What they in fact mean by "rehabilitation" is eventually to have you surrender your identity. And with that aim in mind, let`s put it this way... My name is Fikret and I have a personality, an identity, political choices.

Fikret and Deniz were released from an F-type prison when they became ill from starvation. Today, they continue to hunger strike to support their comrades on the inside.

DOGU ERGIL: They feel that they are soldiers fighting against this bad system and they are, sort of, prisoners of war, rather than just common criminals. But the same thing is perceived on both sides, you know. I mean, these are not citizens, who have done wrong, you see. These are rebels against the system and what you do with the rebels - you hang them. But, since you cannot hang them because of the laws, you see, and the international treaties, conventions we have signed, but you can treat them as enemies within the prisons.

On 19 December, 2000, 10,000 military police stormed 20 prisons across Turkey. Their aim was to relocate 2,000 inmates to the F-type prisons and end the hunger strikes.

SOLDIERS ON LOUDSPEAKER (Translation): Nobody is going to be harmed in the slightest. Our aim, is not to harm you in any way.

HACER ARIKAN (Translation): You`re already within four walls with nowhere to go. What does "surrender" mean? You`re already in prison. How much more can one surrender? A friend said later on, "You`re in a matchbox and there`s an elephant on top of you. How can you escape from the elephant`s foot?" You can`t. We said we wouldn`t surrender.

WOMEN SPEAK TO GENDARMES: It is your duty to kill people? To torture and wound them, then take them to hospital? What is this? Look at what you`re doing! Entering in the dead of night...

The government named the event `Operation Return to Life`. Six inmates in various prisons burned themselves to death rather than move to the F-type cells. 26 others were killed, either by bullets, asphyxiation or fire. Many more were injured.

HACER ARIKAN (Translation): Coming back from the window, I saw my friend burning. As I was trying to put out the fire, I fell too. I collapsed on the floor. I couldn`t put out her fire or make it outside. Friends were calling me from the door. They said "You can come out!" When they saw that I couldn`t, they came inside and took me out. I was the last person taken out of the ward. We went out into the yard. We knew that six of our friends were still inside.

35-year-old Hacer Arikan had been in prison for nine years when the operation was carried out. During the raid, military police drilled holes in the ceiling of her cell, firing in bullets and gas canisters. Hacer believes it was the chemicals in the gas that left her and others with severe burns.

HACER ARIKAN (Translation): I said to myself "I`ll probably die burning. It`s best that I face death with a smile on my face." I said, "You`re most welcome." I couldn`t get out, I couldn`t get up... and in a way... My eyes were closed, so my eyelids had burnt too. I couldn`t open my eyes. How shall I put it... I wasn`t fully aware of my own situation. I realised that I was burning the moment I fell on the floor. But how it happened, what substance had caused it... How shall I put it? You might be on fire and try to put out the flames. You can tell that you`re burning. There were no flames. You don`t feel the heat of burning, but things are melting. Parts of your body are frying and it starts to hurt. The palm of my hand is as it was, unburnt.

Hacer was not on fire. Her clothes were completely unaffected. Yet every part of her exposed skin suffered severe burns. According to a forensic report, there were traces of benzene, toluene and xylene on some of the inmates` clothes and skin. These are chemicals commonly found in paint thinner.

HACER ARIKAN (Translation): It`s still impossible to understand why they used those bombs, or whatever the substance used against us was. I don`t know what it was. There were very young people in the jail, almost children. Some are blind now, some lost an arm or a foot. The state, which is responsible for our welfare, conducts an operation called "Return to Life". Did we take up arms to resist that operation? We had nothing but our bodies.

After the raid, Hacer spent five months in the prison hospital before being returned to her cell for another two months. She was released last July and now lives in this small town with her parents and younger brother.

HACER`S FATHER (Translation): It made me very sad to see a person who had experienced all that. At one point, they had to take me outside. I was obviously quite upset when I saw her like this.

HACER (Translation): I might look different, but I`m the same inside. I don`t feel changed. That`s why I`m still me.

Although Hacer has had several skin grafts, she`ll need many more. Her family can`t afford her treatment, so she`s applied for help from the human rights foundation. Both inadequate funding and excessive demand means Hacer has a long wait ahead of her.

HACER (Translation): The reason I wanted to live is because I knew they would say that we`d burnt ourselves. I was on death`s door. I couldn`t make it known that I hadn`t burned myself. Because for a mother and a father it would be a heavy burden.

As an attempt to end the protests, `Operation Return to Life` was a failure. Hunger strikes turned into death fasts, and the number of participants tripled. For the first time, family and friends on the outside have joined the death fast in solidarity with the inmates.

Ahmet`s daughters, 22-year-old Zehra and 19-year-old Canan, learned of the inmates` struggle while visiting their uncle in prison. They were politically active university students when they started their death fasts.

AHMET KULAKSIZ (Translation): At the time, my thinking was that something is bound to happen. The events will reach a certain point...and even though some might die, it won`t be your own daughter. Not both of them. That`s impossible. It`s impossible to keep on living thinking of that as a possibility. It`s jut unthinkable.

Canan and Zehra both died last year, within two months of each other.

AHMET KULAKSIZ (Translation): This is towards the end...her last days...last days.

Ahmet wrote a book about his daughters. He was subsequently charged with supporting six terrorist organisations.

AHMET KULAKSIZ (Translation): I see my daughters as people who have defended their beliefs with to the very end. In other words, however I look at it, I see them as heroes. I don`t even care that they left me with these worries. I don`t feel that`s important. They defended what they believed in and were true to their word. I remember them as two flowers - two red carnations.

Located in a poor suburb on the outskirts of Istanbul, this house is where Ahmet`s daughters came to die. Sympathy death fasters would live here until the end. Yucel is the owner of the house. He was in prison when his wife invited other death fasters to stay here. She died at the age of 30, leaving Yucel to care for their two children.

YUCEL HANOGLU (Translation): This is the room where most fasters became martyrs.

The death fasters in this house were the face and voice of the protest against the F-type system. With no access to the prisons, the international media would come here to report on the hunger strike.

YUCEL HANOGLU (Translation): People came here to see the death fasters at first hand. The government didn`t want this to influence public opinion. They didn`t want Europe to hear about these events.

Last November, the houses of death were raided by the government`s special forces. This suburb turned into a war zone.

TURKISH NEWS REPORTER (Translation): There is resistance at Kucukarmutlu, dear viewers... The activists have used Molotov cocktails to set their barricades alight. Run, run! Rubber bullets... Gas bombs!

YUCEL HANOGLU (Translation): Nothing could be done. There were thousands of police. They came with their tanks, their Scorpions and Special Operations teams. There wasn`t much we could do. You throw sticks and stones and they respond with bullets.

PEOPLE AT SCENE OF RAID (Translation): See, the house is burning. They ran them over! Look where it`s burning. See, he`s lying on the ground. Yes, they`ve run him over. We multiply as you kill us. You have no honour! Long live our death fast resistance! They`ve killed them all! They`ve killed them all, killed my daughter! They`ve burnt her! Arzu! Arzu! Arzu, my baby!

YUCEL HANOGLU (Translation): Arzu, Bulent, Sultan, Baris... were captured alive in the operation, then executed. Of the people in this house, they were the ones shot dead by the state, murdered by the security forces of the state. They came with a massacre in mind and that`s what they did.

Only one of those killed was on a death fast. The other three were friends who had come to care for them. Now, Yucel is trying to rebuild his house so he can live here with his two young children.

YUCEL HANOGLU (Translation): I`m not having this fixed. I`ll leave it as a reminder.

This is a poor suburb. People here have always been sympathetic to the left-wing ideals of the prisoners. Months after the raid, the police still have a strong presence here. Entering the suburb in a taxi, I was stopped and searched. A daily occurrence for the residents.

YUCEL HANOGLU (Translation): There`s no inside or outside any more. The whole country is turning into an F-type. If the revolutionaries are put in F-type prisons today, tomorrow it will be all 70 million in there.

In the year and a half since they began, 50 hunger strikers have died. Months of fasting have left hundreds more brain damaged with a condition known as Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome. The eight people living in this Istanbul house are all suffering from this syndrome, which affects memory and coordination.

CAFER (Translation): We call this house the house of life. Because in the prison we were involved in the death fast. Because we were on a death fast, I mean, now we can return to life and have treatment to improve our physical and mental health and support and learn from each other.

Cafer was released from prison because of his illness, but isn`t allowed to leave the country for a spinal fluid transfusion.

CAFER (Translation): In 1996, I was on a hunger strike for 69 days. Because I had total amnesia during that hunger strike, until 1998, I didn`t even know I was in jail. I thought I was still in my village.

Gulnaz was on a hunger strike for 140 days before she fell into a coma.

GULNAZ (Translation): The doctor says I have to learn to walk all over again. I think, I don`t know if I`ve forgotten or not. But that`s what the doctor says. Her sister, Mehtap, comes to visit her as often as she can.

MEHTAP (Translation): I was on the outside when Gulnaz started her death fast. Later I was detained so I didn`t have the opportunity to see her. Now we go for walks, sing songs together...

GULNAZ: We take photos.

MEHTAP: We take photos to send to our comrades who are inside. I feel I love her even more now.

GULNAZ: From the 1996 experience, we knew there`d be these problems. I mean, there is the possibility of death or not dying and going on to live with physical problems. We knew there were these two possibilities - but neither makes you say "Should I do it or not?"

Learning from past experience, the hunger strikers have started taking vitamin B-1 to prevent the onset of Wernicke Korsakoff. Apart from vitamins, their only intake is sugar and tea, to stop them slipping into a coma. While Fikret and Deniz can extend their lives with vitamin B-1, this also prolongs the pain for their family and friends.

Eren Keskin, president of the human rights association in Istanbul, has been fighting against F-type prisons from the start. Derya is Deniz`s sister. She wants Eren to persuade her brother to give up his death fast.

EREN KESKIN (Translation): I want to express my views on this issue very clearly. I do not approve of death fasts as a method. I am for protest based on life not on death. I can understand death fasts in prisons to a certain extent. But not those on the outside. And this is how I see Deniz`s death fast. But I have to respect it, knowing it`s his own decision. It`s a peculiar situation.

DERYA (Translation): They believe in what they`re doing to the very end. But we families are helpless. Every time we visit them we see them wasting away.

EREN KESKIN: But the real issue is this: So few people are aware that Deniz Bakir is on a death fast that he`s continuing his fast on the outside. His death will be no more than a short news item. That is the problem. The oppressed classes in Turkey, workers and public servants, aren`t even aware he`s dying. And his death won`t change that.

EREN KESKIN AT PROTEST: Friends you are aware that the F-type prisons are still being built.

For four years now, human rights groups have campaigned against F-type prisons. They have had no more success than the hunger strikers.

EREN KESKIN (Translation): There is a proposal acceptable to the people inside. It was put forward by four of Turkey`s major bar associations. It`s called "Three Doors, Three Locks". It involves opening three adjacent cells to allow the nine prisoners in those cells to socialise at certain times. For us, that doesn`t mean an end to isolation but it is a solution accepted by those inside even though it`s a short-term solution. We`ll keep fighting to abolish isolation but this is a way accepted by those inside and it`s an acceptable way. But the justice minister doesn`t accept it, hence the deadlock.

FIKRET (Translation): Along with the abolition of isolation we have other humanitarian demands such as having visitors and access to the papers we want, the ability to speak to our lawyers, removal of the restrictions on meeting with our friends and family... They`re demands like that, humanitarian demands. If these humanitarian demands are met, together with the proposal for "Three Doors, Three Locks", the death fasts will cease.

Dateline approached Turkey`s Deputy Prime Minister, Justice Minister Human Rights Minister and the former human rights minister. No-one was willing to discuss the protest against F-type prisons or events such as `Operation Return to Life`. The government`s position is simple. It refuses to negotiate until the death fasters give up. The death fasters` position is equally clear.

FIKRET (Translation): The main characteristic of what we call death fasts is that it starts with the acceptance of death. Either our demands will be met or the fats will continue until death.