ISTANBUL, Dec 19: Demonstrators took to the streets of Istanbul on Sunday to commemorate the death of 30 prisoners exactly four years earlier in a military crackdown on jailed hunger-strikers and political protesters.

About 2,000 demonstrators, accusing Turkey of being an "assassin state," marched in the Kadikoy district on Istanbul's Asian, an AFP photographer said. The Anatolia news agency said police foiled another demonstration organized by prisoners' families on the central Independence avenue on the European side, and detained 17 people.

A third demonstration took place without incident outside the Bayrampassa prison, Anatolia said. The prison revolt in 2000, in which about two dozen people died in hunger strikes, was sparked by the introduction of high-security prisons, characterized by tiny isolation cells. In the crackdown, called "operation return to life," hundreds of detainees were transferred to the new prison wings. -AFP