Istanbul (AFP) – One hundred and ten Turkish coal miners who had marched 200 kilometres (125 miles) to stage a hunger strike for their unpaid wages were arrested on Tuesday morning, their union said. After a nine-day march to Ankara from the neighbouring province of Ekisehir, the miners arrived on Monday 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 across their own 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 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 Monday evening. When questioned by AFP, the energy ministry declined to comment for the time being.
© 2024 AFP
