CENTRAL NEWS
Where states are putting up a depthless fight against the Covid-19 pandemic all over the world, the Turkish state has not taken the trouble to even seem as if preventative measures are being taken. Instead, the Turkish state seems to be creating a floor to attain the greatest political and economic advantage by utilizing the chaos brought about by the pandemic, making preparations to strengthen its leeches chipped in the pockets of the people.
While the AKP government continues to plead for 10 liras from the public in the name of crisis donations, simultaneously 125 million Turkish liras are being spent on another one of Tayyip Erdogan’s palaces under construction in the Ahlat district of Bitlis, on the shores of Lake Wan.
Turkey was the last major economy in the world to report its first case of the highly contagious pandemic on March 11. It was also the only nation with a population exceeding 50 million people not to confirm a single case until that date.
Since then, the contagion has spread rapidly throughout the country, with 65,111 confirmed cases and 1,403 deaths.
Erdogan’s approach and the policy being implemented in the face of current proceedings is either ‘organised chaos’ or the door to collapse. Following the confession of the disease within Turkey’s occupational borders, the general policy being followed was advising the elderly to stay at home. The uninformed elderly were shown being terrorised on national television, with highly discriminatory commentations about this age group being the carriers and spreaders of the fatal disease.
Restrictions very slowly became inclusive of younger generations, with the exception of workers, which happens to be a notable fraction of this age range. Trying to keep the economy at bay, along with the palace lights on, Erdogan’s regime initiated a ‘Public Donation’ campaign, sharing his bank details on national television only months after bragging that “The IMF asked us for a debt of 5 billion dollars, or perhaps euros.” Erdogan continued, “I told the friends to give it.”
Revenue was already recklessly paralyzed by Erdogan’s AKP in its attempt to alleviate the effects of the August 2018 currency crisis, when the United States sanctioned Turkey for its detainment of US Pastor Andrew Brunson on terrorism charges. With additional occupational wars being launched since then, namely in Libya and Rojava, the Coronavirus seems to be playing a determining role in the future of Turkish economy.
“Now that the world is different economically after the coronavirus lockdowns, the AKP needs even more resources to spend which they simply do not have as they tapped them over the last three years,” Turkey-based economist, Guldem Atabay said.
“Furthermore, the Turkish economy is not demonstrating that it can withstand the pandemic even in the short-term since the government lacks resources to support the most vulnerable parts of society, which is a crucial requirement in dealing with this particular crisis.
Consequently, Erdogan is trying to prevent a full-scale national lockdown of the kind other countries have begun implementing.”
On March 31, Erdogan’s yes-man and Turkey’s minister of interior Suleyman Soylu barred local administrations from fundraising unless authorized by Ankara-appointed governors, a day after Erdogan announced his own nationwide campaign to collect donations from the public. As a result, banks illegally blocked the fundraising accounts of municipalities.
Parallel to increasing tensions with the public about the lack of seriousness by the AKP-MHP duo in the face of an epidemic which seems to have conquered the world, an abrupt weekend curfew was launched in the 31 biggest districts on 10 April, two hours prior to commence. Not only were the boundaries of distance completely neglected on this night, street fights and queue brawls were reflected on social media platforms.
While the impact of interactions on the night remains largely undisclosed in terms of new cases, Erdogan’s dictatorship responded to the poorly planned fiasco by staging a narrative in which the Turkish minister of internal affairs, Suleyman Soylu, declared his resignation with a sorrowful letter on Twitter, claiming all responsibility for the circus show after overwhelming criticism.
Again, Erdogan effectivised the ‘fear and nationalism’ card, stating that Suleyman’s resignation would not be accepted because of his huge success(?) in fighting terrorism. Suleyman’s resignation coincided with the date by which he had declared he would end the PKK.
During this process, the most radical criticisms against the state, and particularly the Turkish state, come from health organisations which are increasingly influential. The Turkish Medical Association expressed that the spread of the disease is largely the fault of the government. The arguments were justified as follows:
- “Although it was learned that the outbreak was in Iran, the border gates were gradually closed and effective quarantine was not applied to those who came from the country.
- Except for body temperature screening, almost no restrictive practices were applied to more than 300 thousand people who came from European countries known to have the disease.
- As relations with the European Union became tense, immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees living in various cities of the country were sent to provinces bordering Greece by bus. About a week later, they were brought to their former places by buses again.
- Although it was known that there was an outbreak in Saudi Arabia, most of the 20 thousand people who came back from Umrah (Islamic pilgrimage) were not quarantined.
- While schools and universities were closed, military recruitment, discharges and mass prayers were not suspended at the same time.
- Most of the people with symptoms of the disease, who contacted them and health workers who contacted possible Covid-19 patients were not systematically tested.”
Unsurprisingly, the Turkish Medical Association was declared a terrorist organisation by the dictatorship.
In a more recent statement jointly made by Association, and supported by the İstanbul Medical Chamber, it was implied that test results are being hidden to conceal the true impact of the disease. The Association also drew attention to those who died of the disease but their test results indicated negative.
“The Health Ministry does not use the code suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) to report the deaths. One of the codes, U07.1, is for patients whose polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were positive, and the other, U07.2, is for those who had the disease but died without a positive test.”
“Doctors say that computed tomography images and clinical findings of some patients show that they have Covid-19, although they have tested negative.”
The association reported that “TTB physicians reported that the ‘death cause’ section for patients without a positive PCR test is recorded as “viral pneumonia,” an “infectious disease” or “natural causes.”
