Criminal complaint against Minister of Forestry amid raging fires in Turkey

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While forest fires and firefighting efforts are ongoing in Turkey, lawyer Figen Albuga Çalıkuşu has filed a criminal complaint against Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli and his deputy ministers, the Director General of Forestry and his vice directors as well as the public officials who prepared the specifications of the tender lodged for firefighting efforts in 2019.

"The forests of our country where we live together are public goods where every single one of us has a share and which fall within the scope of the sovereignty rights that we exercise as a nation," says Çalıkuşu.

Sharing details about her criminal complaint, Albuga Çalıkuşu notes, "As an individual of this country and as a citizen who resides in Antalya, it is my civic duty, like every other citizen, to expect the Constitutional bodies, to which we have transferred our sovereignty right, to fulfill their duties in compliance with the Constitution and laws, to follow up this point and to file a criminal complaint about the acts that constitute a crime, if needs be."

'Prosecutor should find who signed the tender'

Albuga Çalıkuşu says the following about her criminal complaint:

If there had been a full and effective intervention at the moment when the fires broke out, they would not surround the country now, deaths would not have occured, we would not have lost our people, animals, forests, nature, future, savings and values.

"What we, as citizens, expect from the administrations, to whom we have transferred the power of administration, and from the politicians who have taken up this duty on behalf of the state is that they govern us in compliance with the laws. And, in doing this, they must make preferences in such a way that the principles of meritocracy are observed.

"What they did, on the other hand, was to surrender Turkey to three firefighting planes while establishing a new system by bypassing the Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK) and to commit misconduct in office. This constitutes the offense of conscious negligence.

CLICK - State's responsibility and irresponsibility in forest fires

"Those who signed this tender [for firefighting efforts] and accepted those specifications must be found by the prosecutor. 

"If such a tender had not been lodged, if the tender had been lodged in such a way to ensure more proper and technologically advanced firefighting efforts, the country would not be in this state now.

"There are people who are responsible for this. It needs to be known that signatures cannot just be put to documents so arbitrarily. When we run the red light, we pay the fine for this, right?"

'The state must fulfill its duty'

Noting that everyone, aggrieved or not, can file a criminal complaint like her, lawyer Figen Albuga Çalıkuşu adds:

"There were so many people who asked me questions about this. I send my petition to these people and they submit it to the prosecutor's office. Look, this is not a court case. This is a method through which we request that the prosecutor's office launch a penal investigation. In the event that there arises responsibility in that regard, people can also sue for damages.

"Firstly, the ones who put their signatures to this arbitrariness must be found; secondly, if the forests were set on fire, the ones who did it must be found; the state must fulfil its duties of execution and judiciary.

"They want to pit people against each other. The institutions of the state must not make efforts at this point."

Of the 144 forest fires raging across the country since July 28, 136 have been taken under control. There are still ongoing firefighting efforts to put out two fires in Antalya, five fires in Muğla and one fire in Isparta. (SO/SD)