Yonca Alemdar was taken to the “smuggling” branch of the police to be questioned. She was distributing the masks completely free. However, the police still insisted to detain and take her to the police station.
Maintaining social distancing is a problem in Turkey. People are just not used to staying a certain distance away from each other. Many would prefer masks, but since Turkey ignored the spreading pandemic and started implementing measures very late in the game masks are nearly impossible to find.
Turkish government is trying to keep daily life from collapsing on the one hand, and trying to prevent the disease to spread on the other. The governing AKP and MHP parties know the consequence of shutting businesses in a country where the economy has already collapsed.
Many workers’ demonstrations, walk outs and work stoppage actions took place when the bosses refused to close their plants even when several workers were taken ill. Workers demanded protective gear, cleaning of the workplaces, and taking measures to protect the health and safety of those in the factories. The bosses, they said, worked from home to protect themselves, but what about those who had to be on site physically?
In this environment, Yonca Alemdar the president of the Bartın popular association Halkevleri, the Peoples’ Houses organization, tried distributing the hard to come by masks to the vendors in a street market. Street markets are common in Turkey where vendors bring their vegetables and fruits to a certain street for a day to sell. However, the close proximity of the buyers and the sellers cause a huge risk in the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
She was detained by the Turkish police soon for “distributing masks without a permit.”
This contradicts the Minister of Health himself directly since he, on the very same day, had asked people to make their own masks themselves from cloth or bandannas.
The Turkish system has had a hostile stand against the Halkevleri organization because the organization acts independent of the government and organizes the poor, the workers, the women, and the vulnerable. Halkevleri also gives mostly free classes on folk dancing, folk singing, theatre, acting, photography and other activities where under privileged people cannot get due to the costs involved.
Many demonstrations and peoples’ rights actions organized by Halkevleri had been the target of the police. In this incident also the police were not able to give a satisfactory answer on why the Halkevleri effort to distribute masks was taken as a crime.
Yonca Alemdar was taken to the “smuggling” branch of the police to be questioned. She was distributing the masks completely free. However, the police still insisted to detain and take her to the police station.
At the station, the police took a step back and this time claimed she had not distributed the masks “according to the regulations.” When Yonca demanded to see the “regulation” in question the investigator gave a number. She said, “When I investigated that number over the internet, I found out that the number pertains to medical equipment. I told them that the regulations that I was supposed to have broken is for medical masks in a medical center. They replied, ‘The pandemic is new to us, there is no regulation for what you have done. We have some loopholes here.’ “
Yonca Alemdar returned back to the market after her detainment and questioning. She found out that the vendors were trying to find her and asked if she had any more masks.
Previously she and Halkevleri was involved in another struggle to get toilets to be repaired for the vendors at the same street market. Due to this, the vendors recognize the organization and Alemdar. The toilet issue was not only for repair but also to make the paid toilets free, to have a child diaper change station, handicapped access, and a mothers’ nursing room. They were able to get all these. This struggle established a credibility with the women workers of the street market and Alemdar.
One reason that made Alemdar distribute the masks was learning that people were using a single use mask for two weeks. She said, “I had a cloth that was double thick. I asked a friend if we could use it for protection. When we learned that it could be used, I started making and distributing the masks.”
A pro-government paper, Akşam claimed the Bartın Halkevleri president was selling the masks. After protests, the paper had to retract the news.
Sendika.org news (M.B.)