Lynch mobs spread fear in Turkey’s southwest as wildfires rage on

A group of some 100 people in Turkey’s western Aydın province took it upon themselves to run patrols as wildfires continue to rage in the province’s rural parts. On Wednesday night, the angry mob stopped a car with a licence plate from another province and lynched three passengers, Mezopotamya Agency reported.

The group told gendarmerie officials that they saw in the car a small cylinder of butane gas, used for barbecues, and some diesel fuel in a canister, saying the out-of-town passengers had come to start fires.

A video by Demirören News Agency (DHA) shows the group surround the car and pelt it with stones. The driver drives away as soon as the group clears the front of the car.

Aydın Efeler'de Balıkesir plakalı bir aracın, orman yakmak için bölgeye geldiği söylentisi üzerine 100 kişilik bir grup aracı durdurdu, aracın içindeki 3 kişiye linç girişiminde bulundu https://t.co/QseJoW5s4i pic.twitter.com/9K6XlCXA2o

— Evrensel Gazetesi (@evrenselgzt) August 5, 2021

Video released by Mezopotamya shows the gendarmerie arriving at the scene, and taking into custody three people from the car. One person is heard in the video saying he could not breathe, with another from the group responding, “Let him die.”

Aydın’ın Efeler ilçesinde yol kesen 100 kişilik ırkçı grup, durdurdukları bir aracın için bulunan 3 kişiyi linç ettihttps://t.co/EdRqCwcC9L pic.twitter.com/cmTyErM34N

— Mezopotamya Ajansı (@MAturkce) August 5, 2021

Local newspaper Gazete Aydın reported that two people fled the scene while two men and one woman were detained. According to the local paper, the passengers were “of foreign origin”.

The paper later said a group of 300 locals had gone on patrols with their firearms, looking for the two people who fled, accusing them of being terrorists.

In another report, Gazete Aydın said the people in the car were local young men trying to find an isolated spot to spend time with their girlfriends.

Another local paper, Aydın Ses, reported after the matter was resolved that some villagers saw the suspects starting a fire, a claim not corroborated by other sources.

Also on Wednesday night, another group of concerned citizens cut off the main road between Muğla’s Yatağan and Milas districts and set up a makeshift checkpoint. A EuroNews reporter captured local man Muharrem Duygu on camera, shouting at a car with a licence plate from another city.

“What if they set the forest on fire and are now running?” Duygu asked, as the family they stopped, who appeared to be Kurdish due to their accents, tried to reason with him.

“Our children are with us, we are leaving because of the fire,” a man from the stopped family pleaded.

NO COMMENT | Yatağan-Milas yolunda gece saatlerinde trafiği durdurup kimlik kontrolü yapmak isteyen bir şahıs olay yerindeki gazetecilerin tepkisi üzerine bölgeden uzaklaştı pic.twitter.com/Fs1sRExrda

— euronews Türkçe (@euronews_tr) August 5, 2021

In the weekend, armed locals had started patrols and checkpoints in Antalya’s Manavgat district upon rumours that the forest fires had been the result of arson.

“These mountains are impassable. No PKK, nobody can pass from here,” a villager with a rifle was seen as saying in a video.

"#Manavgat'ta sabotaj iddiaları üzerine silahlı sivil gruplar gece boyu yol keserek, kimlik sorarak mahallelerde nöbet tuttu."
(Devlet ayaktadır, kimse kendini işgüzarlık yapıp devletin yerine koymasın. Mete S.)@suleymansoylu@AntalyaValilik@jandarma @AntalyaEmniyet pic.twitter.com/tsDk9mT7It

— Mete Sohtaoğlu (@metesohtaoglu) August 2, 2021

Since the fires broke out nine days ago, some social media accounts, many of them appearing to be very newly opened and with few followers, have spread rumours that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had started the fires as acts of terrorism.

On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said some people who were arrested in relation to the fires had family members who were in contact with the armed group that has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for four decades.

“We have determined that there are persons with connections to the PKK among the families of those arrested,” in relation to the wildfires, Erdoğan told journalists on the pro-government network A Haber.https://t.co/QqOlbOcvof

— Ahval (@ahval_en) August 4, 2021

Kemal Bülbül, Antalya deputy for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), submitted a parliamentary inquiry on what he called civilian street gangs, asking the Interior Ministry what had been done about the crowds that cut off roads and stopped citizens.

Bülbül cited Manavgat’s Mayor Şükrü Sözen as saying, “These people are carrying out actions that will scare innocent citizens, such as ID checks, road blocks and firing shots into the air for intimidation, based on false tips to catch arsonists and so-called suspects,” Mezopotamya reported.

The HDP deputy asked whether the ministry had taken action to keep radical and armed civilian gangs from “terrorising life”. The armed mobs “threaten the will of Turkey’s peoples to live together in peace.”

In another apparent targeting of the HDP, which stands accused of organic ties to the PKK but denies it ever was, district co-chair for Antalya’s Döşemealtı district Mehmet Deniz was stopped by some 20 people Tuesday night, according to newspaper Yeni Özgür Politika.

The group was fully armed, save for two, Deniz told reporters. “When I said I was returning home, they asked to see my ID. I asked them what they were doing, as they were neither police or soldiers. They said they would know what their purpose was, not Deniz, he said.