Earthquake families end 11-day vigil after meeting with Justice Ministry

Families of victims from the February 6, 2023 earthquakes ended their 11-day protest in front of the Justice Ministry in Ankara on Sunday after meeting with Deputy Minister Can Tuncay. The platform, representing relatives from 11 affected provinces, had demanded a meeting with Minister Akın Gürlek to discuss impunity in building collapse cases.

Deputy Minister Tuncay listened to the families' specific grievances regarding delayed expert reports and fugitive defendants. The ministry stated that its newly established Natural Disasters and Accidents Department would monitor judicial processes more systematically.

“Natural disasters do not kill; buildings built without rules for profit kill. Negligence killed, state negligence killed. Profiteers massacred this many people, this is a massacre.”

Platform representative Celal Gezer said they presented concrete case files and numbers, noting that ministry officials appeared unaware of the details. Both sides agreed to reconvene within one month after the ministry reviews the submitted information.

DEM Party Co-Chair Tülay Hatimoğulları visited the protesters earlier on the 11th day, calling the building collapses a "massacre" caused by corruption and state negligence rather than the earthquake itself. She emphasized that earthquake-resistant buildings in Japan withstand far stronger tremors.