Puppet Masters

Turkish PM Erdogan slapped a mourning man in the face during visit to the mine accident area

Umut Uras
Al Jazeera
Sat, 17 May 2014 12:55 UTC

Video taken in Soma, where mining accident killed 301, shows Erdogan telling a man he will be slapped for booing him.

A video has emerged of Turkey's prime minister threatened a young man with a slap if he booed him on a visit to a town recovering from a mining disaster.

The video, released by Turkey's Dogan News Agency, was apparently taken during Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit on Wednesday to the eastern town of Soma - a day after nearly 300 people died as they worked underground.

In the video, Erdogan walks with his bodyguards as Soma residents around him boo. Then he approaches a young man and says: "If you boo this country's prime minister, you get slapped."

The accident in Soma has been controversial not only because of lax safety standard accusations targeting the government, but also incidents involving an aide of Erdogan and the prime minister himself during his Soma visit.

Photos showing Yusuf Yerkel, an adviser to Erdogan, kicking a protester held down by Turkish police during the visit emerged earlier in the week.

Confirming the photo's authenticity, Yerkel said in a press statement on Thursday that he was sorry "he could not keep his calm in the face of the provocations" in Soma.

Angry crowds

Erdogan featured in earlier videos of a particular incident in which he is alleged to have slapped a citizen in Soma.

Shaky videos with different angles taken in a chaotic and crowded atmosphere make it difficult to detect the exact circumstances of the incident. However, in the beginning of one of the videos, Erdogan is seen saying, "Come and boo to my face," while walking among angry crowds who are chanting for his resignation.

Then he enters a market shop where the alleged slapping took place.

The Soma man, named Taner Kuruca, talked to the national media after the incident and said Erdogan did not mean to slap him, calling the action "involuntary". He added that he was not a protester.

He told Turkish media: "I was not one of the protesters. I came face to face with the prime minister. As his bodyguards started to push, the prime minister unfortunately did something involuntarily and slapped me while I was walking backwards, because he was angry at the crowd and he could not control himself."

Protests have taken place in various Turkish cities as the extent of the disaster, with at least 298 deaths, becomes clear. Demonstrations have targeted mine owners, accusing them of ignoring safety standards and Erdogan's government of being too close to businessmen and insensitive to the tragedy.

In the days following the accident, police clashed with protesters in Turkey's three biggest cities, Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir as well as other ones.

The Turkish company that owns the mine has defended its safety record and senior Turkish officials have denied allegations of poor government oversight.

Comment: What a horrible behavior, especially coming from a head of state! Though it goes to show that it is difficult for pathological deviants to control themselves when things don't go their way. In this instance, Erdogan faces the anger of the entire country, and instead of focusing on the tragedy that cost the life of 300 people and put Turkey in mourning, he abuses a poor bystander. His mask of sanity is slipping.

Reader Comments

ippos · 2014-05-17T14:54:48Z

Orwell

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

aurora · 2014-05-17T15:34:47Z

When an ignoramus psychopath rules

Turkey has possibly the worst safety record in terms of mining accidents and explosions in Europe and the third worst in the world. Since the right-wing Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed power in 2002, and up to 2011, a 40% increase in work-related accidents has been reported. The death toll from these accidents reached more than 11,000. - See more at: [Link]
Many analysts agree that what lies behind these tragic events is the unregulated and poorly supervised attempts of a corrupt ruling government to push through hasty privatizations and a forced informalization of labour. The Soma mine itself was privatized in 2005. In the heyday of an anti-public sector campaign, the new owners of the plant proudly declared a decline in production costs from the US$120-130 range under the public ownership of State Coal Inc. (TTK) to US$23.80. It was not very long before it became clear that what actually facilitated this ‘miraculous market success’ was the determined evasion of safety standards. On that front, the president of the private company Soma Inc., Mr. Gürkan, was heard boasting, “You can ask ‘what changed in the mine?’ The answer is ‘nothing.’ We simply introduced methods of the private sector only.” -

The dissolution of the Council of Public Inspection by government decree in 2011 was clearly instrumental in reducing the role of formal inspections to no more than friendly visits to the company headquarters, with no attention paid to the actual working conditions in the tunnels. -

The tragedy is now referred to not as a “working accident,” but the crime of the century not only by Turks but also by the workers abroad. Mining workers in Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela had already shown solidarity by declaring one full day of work leave. In contrast, the half-hearted and tone-deaf speech of Prime Minister Erdogan nearly one full day after the fact, comparing the tragedy to the mining accidents in England and United States in the late 19th century—arguing that “mine accidents are normal globally”—sparked a wave of protests and clashes all over the country. -

gdpetti · 2014-05-18T13:18:57Z

Here's the more recent ruling party protection racket at work, fair use: en.cihan.com.tr/news/AK-Party-rejects-CHP-proposal-on-mine-safety-weeks-before-Soma-blast_2497-CHMTQzMjQ5Ny80

AK Party rejects CHP proposal on mine safety weeks before Soma blast
ANKARA - 15.05.2014 07:12:53

The Turkish government rejected a proposal by the main opposition party two weeks ago that sought to look into the frequent deaths at coal mines in the town of Soma, where a mine explosion on Tuesday has caused the deaths of at least 274 people so far in western Turkey.

The Republican People's Party (CHP) proposal sought to look into frequent explosions at the coal mines in Soma and to establish a commission in parliament to investigate the lack of safe working conditions at the mines. It was rejected on April 29 due to the votes of deputies from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

Süleyman Çelebi, a Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy and former head of the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Unions (DİSK), does not accept that the deaths of more than 200 hundred coal miners can be presented as an accident. “This is no work accident; this is work murder,” he told Today's Zaman.

Erhan Akçay, a Manisa deputy from the National Movement Party (MHP), also feels that the coal mine tragedy in Soma should not be considered a mere work-related accident, though he was seemingly cautious while answering Today's Zaman's questions over the phone and he refrained from calling the incident it murder.

It was in October of last year that, together with 51 other CHP deputies, Özgür Özel submitted the declined parliamentary question for a commission to be set up. The National Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), whose deputies are now a part of the People's Democratic Party (HDP), also offered support to the CHP's proposal at the time.

For Çelebi, who is currently in Soma inquiring about the issue and offering his support to grieving families, the government is responsible for the tragedy since it has in past years refused to accept any of the CHP's draft laws to improve work safety in mines. He said: “If one of our proposals had been given consideration [by the government], there would have been no such accident that could claim so many lives.”

CHP's Özel, who took the floor at the Parliament session on April 29, complained during his speech about the insensitivity of the ruling party to the safety issues at coal mines in Soma, Manisa. Özel said the government had responded to previous parliamentary questions submitted by the CHP on frequent deaths in the Soma mines by saying it had so far conducted 10 inspections, had identified 66 faults at the mines and had issued fines.

But explosions and deaths at coal mines kept on coming, even after the government had responded to the Parliamentary questions concerning them, Özel also said at the April session. He maintained that the ruling party had close ties with some mine companies in the region and that it overlooked issues in the working conditions at the mines.

“There is a company called Uyar Madencilik (Uyar Mining Company), which entertains excellent ties with Manisa deputies [of the AK Party]. In mining, there are so many big problems and flaws [in working conditions], but [although] Uyar Mining was inspected many times, it was never fined until the latest accident [that took place in October last year]," the CHP deputy had said.

When Muzaffer Yurttaş, a Manisa deputy from the ruling AK Party, said at the same April 29 session that the ruling party had no relations with Uyar Mining -- which had closed down the mine where the accident took place in October -- Özel, taking the floor for a second time, responded: “Every time Uyar Mining underwent inspection, [officials of the company] went to take up the issue with the general manager of the TKİ (Turkish Coal Enterprises) accompanied by Manisa deputies [of the ruling party].”

Accusing the government of being responsible for the dozens of miners who lost their lives or were wounded in the past years in the company's coal mine, Özel said: “Although you [the government] identified 66 defects [in safety measures in the mine], you did not lifted a finger until thousands of people were killed and dozens were wounded.”

The MHP's Akçay, who is also in Soma to look into the case, is also not convinced that the government made efforts to take necessary measures against possible accidents at mines. “Safety measures were not sufficient [in the coal mine in Soma]. Neither were the [official] inspections. They [the government] say they carried out inspections, but [the inspections] were not efficient and did not serve their purpose,” he told Today's Zaman.

Safety in coal mines is a real issue in Turkey, and mining is one of the industries in Turkey where most deaths occur. Turkey ranks third in the world and first in Europe in the number of work-related accidents.

The public hospital in Soma, the only one in town, does not have a burn victim unit where burns can be treated. Miners who get burns have to be transported to hospitals in other towns in the region. “For this reason, many of those who were burned in the mines there [over the years] died on the way [to the hospital],” Akçay noted at the April 29 Parliament

Cihan/TZ- AYDIN ALBAYRAK

Joan · 2014-05-17T18:00:08Z

To me this demonstrates the utter contempt the elite have toward us "the little people". We are being used like pawns on a chessboard.

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Turkish PM Erdogan slapped a mourning man in the face during visit to the mine accident area

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