JINHA

MANİSA – With the top defendants denying fault in the case of the Soma mine disaster that killed 301 miners in May in Manisa province, the families of the miners continued pushing for a just trial yesterday.

On May 13 2014, a mining fire started in the Soma mine in a small town in the Aegean region of Turkey as a result of insufficient safety protections, in one of the deadliest workplace massacres Turkey has seen in recent years. 301 workers died inside the mine. After the struggle of families and their allies, 45 defendants have been put on trial, the eight most senior being tried under arrest.

In the first hearing of the case, on Monday, families interrupted the court objecting to the fact that the eight top defendants were teleconferenced in, demanding that the defendants look in their eyes as they gave their testimony. In a victory for the families, the case was delayed until Wednesday while the judge ordered the prisoners brought to the local culture center that has been converted into a courtroom for the hearings.

Can Gürkan, chair of the board for Soma Mining Incorporated, was the first to testify at the second hearing yesterday. He was asked whether he was currently receiving a salary, to which he replied negatively. "He's lying, he does," said the families present. When the court questioned General Director Ramazan Doğru, it emerged that he was currently receiving a base monthly salary, as was Operating Manager Akın Çelik.

When the defendants claimed that they had no fault in the events, members of the families spoke up once again.

"What crime have you accepted? None of you accepted anything. Okay, so you're not guilty. The guilty ones are us," said the families. During a break in the proceedings, the families continued speaking outside the courthouse, saying that the court was taking the side of the defendants.

Labor had a strong presence at the hearings. Lami Özgen, general co-chair of the union federation KESK, said that the 45 people on trial did not include all those guilty, noting that they wanted to see the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources tried for having a hand in the disaster.

Kani Beko, general chair of the union federation DİSK, noted that DİSK observers who had traveled to the site of the mine had found that the miners' helmets were unusable and that the Soma mine was not fitted with steel tubes to transport carbon dioxide out of the mine—a standard feature in mines around the world.

"For this not to happen again, the politicians responsible for this need to be on trial," he said.

(gc/mg/cm)