Investigation on Soma Mines Rejected in April

AKP votes rejected CHP Manisa deputy Özgür Özel's proposal in order to investigate previous deaths in various mines in Soma to prevent "these cases again". 

Özel delivered the proposal to launch an investigation on the deaths and the reasons of these deaths at Soma mines and to establish an Investigation Commission in the Parliamentary on October 23, 2013. Parliamentary General Assembly brought the proposal to agenda on April 29 and AKP’s votes rejected the proposal in spite of CHP, MHP and BDP’s votes.

"So that it won't occur again…"

Proposal mentioned that the worker deaths in 2012 and 2013 and stated that the inspections were inadequate.

“In Manisa’s Soma district’s Darkale village 1 of the 3 workers died after the September 4, 2012 dated fire at a coal mine owned by a private company, on the October 4, 2012 fire, 9 workers were injured and 4 of them were in a critical condition, and on the November 12, 2012 fire, 9 workers were injured and 2 of them were in a critical condition. The last fire at the same mine was on October 20, 2013 and 1 of the workers died, 27 of them were injured”. 

“We present and request investigations to begin to find the accountables and reasons of these deaths at all Soma mines. For these kinds of situations not to occur again, we request to open a Parliamentary Investigation to find permanent solutions and calculation of public sanctions and sufficiency of the inspections.”

“New explosion, new deaths”

According to the Parliamentary protocol, on that day CHP deputy Özel said:

“There are constant explosions at Soma mines and our workers constantly lose their lives. The response to our parliamentary questions is: ‘We inspected for 10 times, there are 66 defects, we gave monetary fines’ Result: New explosion, new deaths.” 

“We saw this coming”

After the Soma explosion yesterday, Özel said:

“Our parliamentary investigation proposal was delivered on October 23, and it had signs of 60 deputies, parliamentary rejected it 20 days ago. Every 3 months, injuries and deaths occur. The mine was closed after the accident occurred for 10 times.” 

“They can’t prevent this even though they deliver many punishments. On my establishing a parliamentary commission proposal, we requested investigations for Some mine accidents. We received the support of MHP and BDP but unfortunately it was rejected 20 days ago. We saw this coming.”  

Parliamentary questions responded late

Özel’s parliamentary questions on this topic were responded very late. 

The parliamentary question dated April 1, 2013 “Inspections and examinations on Manisa’s Soma district coal mine” was responded a year after, on January 21, 2014. 

The parliamentary question dated November 14, 2012 “Relating to the fire on Manisa’s Soma district coal mine” was responded on March 13.  (AS/ENÜ/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.