To minimize the economic damage caused by the effects of the corona virus, President Erdogan has called for a fundraiser.
- The Sars-CoV-2 * coronavirus continues to spread in Turkey .
- President Recep Tayyip E rdogan has therefore called on the population to donate.
- Before that, however, the 66-year-old stamped fundraising campaigns by his political competitors.
Update from April 14, 8:12 p.m .: In Turkey, the number of known corona infections has increased to 65,111 in the past 24 hours, which corresponds to an increase of 4,062 cases compared to the presentation. During the same period, 107 people died in connection with Covid-19 , according to the Ministry of Health, bringing the death toll to 1,403. In total, almost 4,800 patients have now recovered.
Coronavirus in Turkey: Religious agency sticks to Ramadan, the month of fasting
Update of April 14, 2020, 1:50 pm : Despite the coronavirus crisis, believers should fast in Ramadan, according to the Turkish religious authority. “Every healthy believer is obliged to fast during the month of Ramadan as commanded by God. It is not possible to suspend this prayer, ”said the competent authority Diyanet on Tuesday, reports the news agency dpa .
The religious authority further said that, according to experts, fasting healthy people does not favor the spread of the virus. In addition, there is no medical evidence that the immune system is negatively affected. "On the contrary, there are scientific publications that fasting has positive effects on the immune system," it said. Risk groups such as the elderly and people with previous illnesses should refrain from fasting.
Ramadan begins on April 24, 2020 and ends one month later. Believing Muslims refrain from eating and drinking from daybreak to sunset.
The Islamic umbrella organization Ditib in Germany * had called on the faithful to hold back during Ramadan last week and advised high-risk groups to refrain from fasting.
Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu, Kovid-19 salgını nedeniyle Ramazan ayı ve oruç ibadetiyle ilgili vatandaşlardan gelen sorular üzerine, kimlerin oruç tutup kimlerin tutamayacağına dair bir açıklama/TAY.htvNT.N.
- Diyanet (@diyanetbasin) April 14, 2020Coronavirus in Turkey: government approves 90,000 prisoner release law
Update of April 14, 2020, 7:26 a.m .: Due to the corona pandemic , the Turkish parliament has approved a controversial draft law for the release of tens of thousands of prisoners . As a result of the acceptance by the deputies, the draft "became law", was an official Twitter message of the parliament in Ankara on Monday evening. Human rights groups had previously criticized the draft law because it did not include political prisoners .
The law, introduced by the government, provides for the release of approximately 90,000 inmates from overcrowded prisons because of the corona pandemic. Some of them are to be placed under house arrest, while others are to be released from prison early. According to the human rights organization Amnesty International, a total of 279 MPs voted for the law, 51 against. An amnesty activist wrote on Twitter that no opposition amendment had been accepted.
First report from April 13, 2020:
Ankara - The number of people infected with the novel coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 in Turkey has continued to increase in recent days. There are now almost 57,000 confirmed infections . The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan therefore ordered, among other things, extensive curfews * on Friday.
These measures are designed to slow the spread of the virus, as is also practiced in many other European countries.
Coronavirus in Turkey: Erdogan calls on people to donate
Moreover, Erdogan has also launched a fundraising campaign, which is to compensate for the damage caused by the * Corona crisis. Under the motto "Biz Bize Yeteriz" ("We are enough"), the Turkish president has asked the population to donate to help the needy. What sounds like Erdogan's unselfish action gets a bland aftertaste on closer inspection.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
© AFP / HANDOUT
Because before Erdogan started his fundraising campaign, the mayors of the metropolitan cities of Ankara and Istanbul, among others, took their own initiatives and launched their own regional fundraising campaigns. The success did not fail. Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul , announced that almost 887,000 euros had been raised within one and a half days.
Wiefocus.de reports, however, that the Erdogan government described these calls for donations as illegal and froze the donation accounts. According to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, municipalities are not entitled to collect donations independently according to Turkish law. Erdogan himself spoke of the fact that one cannot tolerate a “state within a state”.
Coronavirus in Turkey: criticism of President Erdogan - votes instead of health
The fact that both the mayors of Ankara and Istanbul, as well as those of the nine other municipalities in which donation campaigns were banned, belong to the largest opposition party, the CHP, is particularly delicate. Critics therefore assume that the government's donation campaign will take the wind out of its sails and take the initiative itself.
The CHP was outraged by the government's actions. In her opinion, collecting donations from municipalities and municipalities is anything but illegal. Erdogan and his government would deliberately sabotage the measures taken by the municipalities. "Instead of promoting public health, it is now just about votes," attorney Dogan Erkan from the Institute for Legal Studies (TODAM) told Focus and warned of the consequences *.
All previous developments of the corona crisis in Turkey can be found here.
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network
fd, AFP
Rubric list image: © dpa / Uncredited