In Türkiye, environmentalists denounce the adoption of the "super plunder" law to accelerate mining and energy projects

The mobilization of several thousand farmers and villagers in recent months has had no effect. Neither have the warnings of environmental experts, nor the hunger strike launched by a dozen activists last week in Ankara, in the small, shaded Cemal Süreya Park, located near the Turkish National Assembly.

After four days of heated debate, the deputies of the Islamo-conservative presidential majority adopted late Saturday evening, July 19, the twenty-one articles of a law opening agricultural land, including olive groves and forest sites, to mining. That same morning, in what seemed like a last-ditch effort, all the deputies from the various opposition parties attempted to interrupt the vote by occupying the parliamentary gallery. In vain. Members of the ruling AKP party, which initiated the bill, and its far-right ultranationalist ally, the MHP, did not hesitate to come to blows before the final vote.

The law, which is part of a series of legislative initiatives by the AKP aimed, according to its authors, at deregulation to boost growth, has been a source of concern among environmentalists for many months. Dubbed by its recent predecessors the "super plunder law," it is the culmination of more than ten more or less similar legislative projects submitted to parliamentary committees in recent years and previously rejected or withdrawn.

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