ANKARA A hunger-strike over controversial prison reforms in Turkey has claimed a 23rd victim following the death of a former inmate in the southern city of Mersin, a leading human rights group told AFP Monday.

Ugur Turkmen, who spent three years in jail for aiding an extreme left armed group, had joined the months-long protest in prison and continued to fast when he was released in January under an amnesty bill, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Association (IHD) said.

He died late Sunday, she added.

Turkmen, aged 29, was convicted for helping the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which Ankara accuses of masterminding the hunger strike, Anatolian News Agency reported.

Of the 22 other protestors who have starved themselves to death since March, 18 were prisoners and four were relatives of inmates who joined the strike in solidarity.

The hunger strike was launched in October by mainly left-wing inmates to protest the introduction of new jails with tighter security.

The protestors say the new design will make the inmates more vulnerable to ill-treatment.

Some 400 prisoners are continuing the hunger strike, with 164 of them hospitalized, according to official figures.

The deaths have placed Turkey's already troubled human rights record in the international spotlight at a time when the country needs to implement far-reaching democratic reform to promote its candidacy for European Union membership.

Despite pressure from the Council of Europe and the EU, Ankara rejects negotiating a compromise with the inmates.

In a bid to improve prison conditions, the Parliament recently adopted two bills -- one lifting a ban on the association in recreational areas of terrorism convicts, and the other introducing special judges to deal with prisoner complaints.

A third bill setting up committees to inspect jail conditions is on Parliament's agenda.

However, the new legislation has failed to satisfy the strikers.

Last week, Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk accused Belgium and the Netherlands of harboring DHKP-C leaders, who reportedly direct the protest and issue threats to doctors treating the strikers.

Meanwhile, an Islamist, believed to be a member of group Hizbollah was killed and two policemen lightly injured overnight during an attack by militants in Turkey's eastern Province of Batman, state-run Anatolian News Agency said.

The agency said the militant opened fire on a police car patrolling in the town of Batman, known as a stronghold for Hizbollah. He was shot dead by police as they fired back.

Hizbollah emerged in Turkey's mainly-Kurdish southeast in mid-1980s when fighting between separatist Kurds and Turkish troops was at its peak.