Four arrests in farmers' protest against electricity cut-outs in Urfa

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Farmers in Viranşehir, Urfa closed the Urfa-Mardin highway, demonstrating against the regional electricity distribution company, protesting that they cannot irrigate their products. 

While the police took nine farmers into custody during the protest, four farmers were arrested after appearing in court.

The farmers who protested the Dicle Electricity Distribution Company (DEDAŞ) on Sunday were taken to the Viranşehir courthouse to give their statements at the prosecutor's office. The prosecutor requested that the court arrests all nine for "resisting security officers" "damaging public property," and "jeopardizing traffic safety." 

The court arrested İsmail Akyol, Abdulkadir Yıdızoğulları, Mehmet Yıldızoğulları and Zafer Keskinbıçaklı, and released the other farmers on condition of judicial control. 

The arrested farmers were sent to the Hilvan Prison. 

The reasons for farmers' protests

DEDAŞ is responsible for the electricity distribution in Diyarbakır, Urfa, Batman, Mardin, Siirt and Şırnak provinces in the southeast of Turkey since the service was privatized in 2013. 

Farmers are severely affected by electricity cut-outs by the company. The farmers of the region draw water from deep underground to irrigate their products, and use electricity for this purpose. 

However, DEDAŞ, is organizing planned electricity cut-outs in the region, justfying it on unpaid bills and leakage in the network. 

The company has cut the electricity in more than 200 villages uninterruptedly for 75 days in 2020. 

In 2021, they organized raids on the villages together with the genderma and seized transformers of the villagers in 2021, instead of electricity cut-outs. 

The farmers are demonstrating in protest of the cut-outs and the high electricity bills which they cannot pay. Lastly they had organized a protest in front of the DEDAŞ headquarters on July 9 where farmers were subjected to police violence and 21 were taken into custody.

According to DEDAŞ, the total amount of unpaid electricity bills in Urfa as 13.2 billion lira (500 million US dollars). The General Manager, Yaşar Arvas reports that 10.5 billion lira of the debt belongs to the subscribers carrying out agricultural irrigation.Arvas also asserts that the leakage ratio is 54 percent in Viranşehir and that 95 percent of the subscribers involved in irrigation are indebted.  

(HA/PE)