Turkey arrests 110 coal miners on hunger strike
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Miners protesting outside Turkey's Energy Ministry in Ankara with a banner reading: "Let the government decide: either declare us slaves or grant us our rights."
PHOTO: AFP
ISTANBUL – A total of 110 Turkish coal miners who had marched 200km to stage a hunger strike for their unpaid wages were arrested on the morning of April 21, their union said.
After a nine-day march to Ankara from the neighbouring province of Eskisehir, the miners arrived on April 20 for a topless sit-in outside the country’s Energy Ministry building in the Turkish capital, before being surrounded by the police.
“We are hungry,” several of them had written on their bare skin.
“We were waiting to speak to someone outside the Energy Ministry; the only response we received was the arrest of 110 of our colleagues,” the Bagimsiz Maden-Is miners’ union said on social media platform X.
The lignite miners are demanding the payment of outstanding wages and redundancy pay from their employer, Doruk Mining.
“In this country, workers don’t count, only money matters... Shame on those who run this country,” mining union chief Gokay Cakir told the striking miners on the evening of April 20.
When questioned by AFP, the Energy Ministry declined to comment for the time being. AFP
