7 Turks arrested in environmental protest

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Seven environmental activists were arrested in Istanbul on Thursday after protesting the construction of
new dams in Turkey
that will submerge a national park and displace thousands of Kurds.

They chained themselves to a tree in front of the Tunceli Association
headquarters – a group involved in the infamous Ilisu Dam project – and chanted
slogans that the dam would poison the national park and destroy entire forests.

Police arrived on the scene, cut their chains and took them all into custody, according to the Turkish national daily Millyet.

The protesters are from the Munzur Preservation Society, a
small umbrella group for a smorgasbord of different environmental organizations.
They have fought the Ilisu Dam, an enormous hydroelectric power plant which, when
completed in 2013, will flood the Munzur
Valley, a lush national park in
southeastern Turkey.

One of the protestors was a woman wearing an Islamic
headscarf who sported a white smock that said “The dam must not destroy; don’t touch
my Munzur!”

They chose to protest when they saw that other environmental
groups, especially Greenpeace, were not taking strong enough action against the
Ilisu Dam project.

Two of the seven protestors, Hilal Atici and Erkut Erturk, were
from Greenpeace in Turkey.
While small, Greenpeace is highly visible in Istanbul and passes out flyers non-stop in the
15-million-person city’s busiest areas.

The Ilisu Dam project is largest of the 21 dams in the
Southeastern Anatolian Project, an enormous infrastructure undertaking near the Syrian
and Iraqi border. When the Ilisu Dam is completed it will create a massive reservoir
that could displace as many as 80,000 people. In addition, the 10,000-year-old
city of Hasankeyf
will be completely submerged.

Construction on the dam started on Aug. 6 and it is expected
to be completed in seven years. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan believes the
project will boost the economy of the impoverished southeastern part of Turkey.