The Turkish Interior Ministry and local authorities should promptly disclose the number of public officials and elected municipal authorities being investigated in the collapse of buildings in Türkiye's devastating 2023 earthquakes, Human Rights Watch, the Platform for Families in Pursuit of Justice, and the Citizens' Assembly said today. This follows the decision by an Ankara administrative court on September 26, 2024, rejecting an Interior Ministry request to suppress the information.
Under Turkish law, public prosecutors are required to get permission from the government before they can investigate public officials and elected municipal authorities. Many private contractors are under investigation for misconduct in connection with the earthquakes, which killed over 53,000 people, but very few public officials face investigations.
"People in Türkiye have a right to know how many public officials are under investigation and on trial for the failure to enforce building standards that led to the collapse of buildings and the death of thousands of people," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Withholding information about the extent of efforts to hold municipalities and politicians accountable is tantamount to admitting that they have impunity for their crimes."
The three groups have written to the Interior Minister to request prompt information disclosure, and the Citizens' Assembly has filed a right to information request asking officials to disclose the numbers.
In January 2024, Citizens Assembly, a Turkish nongovernmental organization, collaborated with Human Rights Watch on research about the accountability of public officials in earthquake-related cases and filed information requests with the Interior Ministry, governorates of the 11 provinces in southeastern Türkiye devastated by the earthquakes, and 46 district governorates in those provinces.
The groups sought details on the number of public officials and politicians in municipalities and other local authorities for whom permission to investigate had been granted to prosecutors in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation into collapsed buildings. However, only six agencies replied, and the others rejected the request or did not respond.
The General Directorate of the Provincial Division at the Interior Ministry declined to disclose the number of investigation permits, citing the confidentiality of the investigation.
The Right to Information Council under the Justice Ministry overruled the directorate's decision following a Citizens' Assembly appeal on March 27. But the Interior Ministry applied to an Ankara Court to overturn the Council's decision.
On September 26, the Ankara 8th Administrative Court dismissed the Ministry's request for a stay of execution and removed any obstacle to disclosing the requested information about possible criminal responsibility of elected officials, such as mayors, municipal assembly members, and other related decision makers for the collapse of buildings during the earthquake.
On November 28, the Interior Ministry appealed the court decision. The result is pending.
The Platform for Families in Pursuit of Justice has been able to identify from its own research that permission has been granted to investigate 39 public officials but has not been able to discover the full number. The investigations concern seven collapsed buildings in Osmaniye, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Adıyaman, and Adana, where a total of 395 people died.
Ensuring that those responsible are held to account in these cases is only possible through effective and comprehensive investigations capable of leading to prosecutions of all individuals and institutions responsible for buildings that did not meet constructive standards, the groups said. That includes elected municipal authorities and public officials with planning, inspection, and decision-making authority.
In Türkiye, a country susceptible to earthquakes, preventing future harm and deaths requires the government to ensure that the widespread impunity that followed the earthquake in the western Marmara region of Türkiye comes to an end.
The European Court of Human Rights found in one case concerning the 1999 earthquake in which 195 people died under the rubble of two buildings that Türkiye had violated the right to life by failing to conduct effective investigations and timely prosecutions capable of leading to the conviction of those responsible.
"Nothing will bring back our families lost in the February 6 earthquakes, but we demand transparent, independent, and impartial judicial and administrative investigation, and prosecution of public officials and the responsible authorities along with private actors," said Zübeyir Boztemir, a member of the Platform for Families in Pursuit of Justice. "The Interior Ministry needs to reveal how many public officials are under investigation and how many in total are on trial as a long overdue first step."
