“Help Turkey” Hashtag on fires sparks Erdogan’s anger
Turkey’s opposition continues to react to the failure of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime to tackle forest fires that have been raging since Wednesday.
Ozgur Ozel, vice-chairman of the Republican People’s Parliamentary Bloc, Turkey’s largest opposition party, criticized Ankara’s chief prosecutor for opening official investigations against those involved in spreading the hashtag “Help Turkey.”
In recent days, after wildfires broke out in several southern Turkish provinces, Twitter has seen a viral spread of the hashtag “Help Turkey” demanding that the world help the country put out the fires.
The hashtag has provoked the Erdogan regime into releasing a number of its officials, led by the president himself, to interpret the hashtag as seeking to portray Turkey as a weak state, even though the government has already failed to play its part in fighting the fires without having a fire-fighter aircraft.
According to Thursday, the website of the opposition newspaper Yeni Cag, which was followed by Al-Ain News, opposition figure Ozel said at a press conference in Istanbul commenting on these investigations, “Confident states are not opening an investigation into this matter. If you’re really strong, and if your self-confidence is in place, you won’t sue and say why are you putting a hashtag to help me?”.
The investigation was opened on the grounds that the hashtag was an “insult” to Turkey and “causes concern in international forums.”
Stop Provocative Policies
Ali Babacan, head of the opposition Democracy and Progress party, called on the Erdogan regime to stop provocative policies and work to put out the fires.
This came in a tweet posted by Babacan on his Twitter account, followed by Al-Ain News.
Babacan tweeted: “We have been burning for days. Tens of thousands have left their homes. Local administrations are screaming. I appeal to the authority: Hear the scream of the local citizens. The issue is not compensation for the dead, stop this provocative policy.”
Cigarette butts
In yet more sarcastic remarks, Turkish authorities on Thursday blamed the fires in the western state of Mugla on cigarettes.
It announced that it had arrested 3 people for causing a forest fire in the area of “Momkolar” in the district of “Bodrum” in the province of Mugla, noting that the fire in that area had been started by the cigarette butts thrown by the suspects from the car.
The defendants were charged with negligence for causing the fire by throwing cigarette butts out of the car, and investigations are ongoing.
A special team was formed within the scope of the investigation and all surrounding security cameras and all photos were examined.
This comes at a time when the public prosecution in a number of affected cities are conducting an investigation into the causes of the fires in them, in implementation of the instructions of the regime, which has placed responsibility on more than one occasion on elements affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
On Thursday, Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli, announced that 180 fires had been put under control in 38 cities over the past nine days.
“Efforts to control 12 fires in the forests of 5 states are ongoing,” Pakdemirli tweeted.
The Minister attached the tweet to an illustration containing information on the ongoing fires in the five states of Antalya, Aiden, Denizli, Isparta and Mugla.
The death toll from the fires was 9 and dozens of injuries, most of which were extinguished by the relevant authorities.
“Turkey’s opposition criticizes the government’s delayed response in controlling the fires, which has caused mounting casualties.”
