Tyb
Despite vows to tighten the rules after the 1999 quake, cronyism and complacency have undermined Turkish building regulations – at the cost of many thousands of lives
by Justus Links
Thu 4 May 2023 06.00 BST
Two men lie on their sides on the cobblestones. A heavy winter boot bears down on the face of one of the men. From behind we hear voices: “Get the uniforms, come,” and then, from whoever is wearing that boot, something indistinct, like a curse. The boot kicks the man in the face – but not hard, it seems, just to scare him. These men are the looters, and now they’ve been caught. The video has been shared more than 1,000 times; there are others in this vein. Justice has been served.
Next in my Twitter feed: the response. Two young men appear, with scraggly beards, and bruises and bleeding around the eyes. “We are the youths you have seen in the video that has been making the rounds … We are not looters. We went downtown, my cousin and I, to get the medicine that our family urgently needed. On our way back, members of the security forces, seeing my backpack and the medicine in our hands, treated us like looters, took us behind a building and beat us, innocent earthquake victims, mercilessly … We are not looters. We are Turkish youth who love our country and were there to take care of our needs.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/04/turkey-erdogan-earthquake-how-years-of-bad-government-made-a-disaster-worse
[They] glow in the dark!