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Turkey Mine Explosion: PM’s Aide Pictured Kicking Protester in Mining Town

Friday, May 16, 2014 3:02

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A protester is kicked by Yusuf Yerkel, advisor to Tayyip Erdogan, as Special Forces officers hold him down Photo: MEHMET ERMIN/REUTERS

By Damien McElroy, The Telegraph – May 15 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/kdzssrs

Fury has erupted in Turkey after a close aide to the Recep Tayyip Erdogan brutally assaulted a man thought to be grieving for relatives in the mining town where almost 300 people lost their lives underground.

Mr Erdogan, who has led Turkey for 11 years, was visibly shocked by the hostile reaction in Soma during a visit on Wednesday when he was forced to take refuge at a supermarket.

Video published in Turkey showed scuffles around the prime minister and one of his staff, Yusuf Yerkel, kicking a man being held down by paramilitary police. Mr Yerkel, who was a PhD candidate at Soas in 2010, told BBC Turkish that he would be making a statement about the image on Thursday.

The angry crowds in Soma called Mr Erdogan a murderer and thief and booed strongly.

In his initial remarks after the disaster, which has so far claimed 282 lives, Mr Erdogan had earlier downplayed the disaster, calling mining accidents “ordinary things” that also occur in many other countries. He gave examples of 19th-century mine accidents in Britain.

The remarks revived anger at Mr Erdogan’s failure to tackle the appalling safety record of the Turkish mining industry. When 30 people died in a mining disaster in 2010, Mr Erdogan said: ‘Unfortunately, this profession has this in its destiny.”

Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon at thousands of protesters in the city of Izmir on Thursday, as a 24-hour strike began.

Police intervened twice when around 20,000 protesters took to the streets of the western city to protest the death of the 282 miners. The incident is the country’s worst ever industrial accident.

The body of a miner is carried away in Soma (AHMET SIK/GETTY IMAGES)

Turkish trade unions have launched a one-day strike in protest at mine safety. According to Turkey’s Mine Workers Union, between 2000 and 2009 there were 25,655 accidents in mines run by the government agency, resulting in 63 deaths and 26,324 injuries.

The video of Mr Erdogan being booed, whistled and heckled by an angry mob as he was escorted to a shop by his security team also showed aides lashing out.

Demonstrators kicked his official car and while a crowd smashed up the local headquarters of the ruling AK Party.

Public anger has been fuelled by accusations that Erdogan’s ruling AK Party dismissed a parliamentary motion submitted by the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) to investigate safety in the Soma mines as recently as 29 April.

Mr Erdogan said the CHP motion had “nothing to do with the Soma mine.”

Separately Turkey’s energy minister said he’d resign if there was a 15-year-old miner among the dead.

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