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Protesters gather in Bursa, Turkey, on July 21 before Kayhan Pala, a public fitness researcher accused of “public misinformation” about the pandemic and the coronavirus “panic. “
Science COVID-19 reports are supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.
In April, Kayhan Pala, a leading public fitness specialist at Uluda University in northwestern Turkey, surprised to be the target of a criminal complaint. Pala, a member of the TURKISH Medical Association’s (TTB) COVID-19 follow-up group, gave an interview to a local online page and shared studies showing that the number of coronavirus cases and deaths far higher than the government had reported. The complaint, filed through the governor of Bursa province, accused him of “public misinformation” and “panic. “”.
To say it was his task to report a fledgling fitness crisis, Pala called for the dismissal of fees, but in the prosecution’s workplace he asked the university’s directors to investigate, only after months of investigation and the national and foreign conviction of rights teams. and fitness staff that the university concluded on September 1 that Pala had acted as a component of his duty.
“I’m a public fitness scientist and I want to communicate about this pandemic locally, nationally and abroad,” Pala said. “It’s a crime. “
However, your case is far from unique. Critics say the Turkish government is using judicial harassment and administrative investigations to suppress complaints and data about the crisis. Since March, they have introduced anti-medical research, adding local TTB leaders, after discussing government fitness policy and coronavirus data on classic and social media. “Our colleagues have revealed clinical facts, nothing more,” says TTB Secretary General Benent Nazum Yulmaz.
A spokesman for Turkey’s Ministry of Health responded to a request for comment.
Turkey, a country of 82 million, has so far reported nearly 300,000 cases of COVID-19 and just over 7,000 deaths. In June, the government declared its containment strategy a good fortune and lifted a partial blockade to revive the country’s crisis economy. But independent doctors and medical associations warned that reopening is premature.
In early August, the TTB stated that its knowledge showed that the actual number of cases shown of COVID-19 in the country was higher than the official figures and accused the government of not being transparent. The Turkish Ministry of Health has denied the allegations. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca recently warned that the country was facing a buildup of cases and deaths and implemented more measures to curb the spread of the virus, according to medical associations, the government’s efforts to suppress pandemic data have continued.
Turkey has not published figures for damaged cases and deaths throughout the city, and government figures do not come with probable cases, as advised by the World Health Organization. the country’s huge refugee population or the ordinary class, despite doctors’ requests for this information.
In April, the Department of Health provoked outrage in declaring that all studies similar to COVID-19 would want their approval, a widely noted measure that prevents independent scientists and physicians from accessing more detailed knowledge about coronavirus. “We are asking for more knowledge and more [measures to prevent the spread of the virus],” Pala says. That’s why they’re crazy about other people talking right now. “
In the southeastern city of Aerlurfa, which has been hard hit by COVID-19, the government launched an investigation into Sanlurfa Medical House Co-Chair Ermer Melik and its Secretary General, Osman Yaksekyayla. Melik first summoned, through the police and accused of sowing concern and panic in early April after posting the number of COVID-19 cases in the city on the official Medical Chamber Twitter account. Later that month, he returned to detention with Eksekyayla after the board highlighted the deaths of medical personnel , raised considerations about the number of coronavirus cases in local prisons and warned on Twitter that medical staff did not have sufficient non-public protective equipment.
Melik told Science that police said a government circular said only ministry of fitness officials had allowed percentages of coronavirus-like data. When he asked to see the steering wheel, they refused, he said. ” Our paintings are accurate and not a criminal situation. “Melik says a date has not yet been set for the hearing of the case.
Public fitness officials around the world are under pressure that defeating COVID-19 requires transparent public communication. In some Western democracies, Twitter and Facebook have been criticized for spreading false data about the pandemic. But in Turkey, where government is one of the world’s leading hound jailers and where voices for government dominate the media, social media has been a popular tool for independent doctors and scientists to tell the public.
“If we don’t know what’s going on and other people don’t know what’s going on, it makes the stage worse and the virus spreads faster,” says former Van Medical Chamber co-chairman Deniz Deeer. Deer was summoned by police in March, after a press interview in which he criticized the Turkish government for not accompanying political prisoners, releasing detainees from local prisons where COVID-19 could spread. of Health and questioned the veracity of the history of government fitness workers. He was accused of making “threats to create concern and panic among the population. “
Two months later, he was informed that the fees had been withdrawn, but claimed that the terrible experience had led him to self-nsorship. “This investigation against me has been abandoned, but that doesn’t mean [the authorities] may not open a new one because of the new messages [on social media],” he said.
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