Every day Turkey is becoming a more eco-destructive country and a highly controversial project is again on the country’s agenda.
The Biogas plant project at Çapaklı, a village in Turkey’s western Manisa province, is another example of the Turkish government’s support of construction with no regard for the environmental impact.
Residents of Çapaklı, a village surrounded with fertile farmlands and olive gardens, have been resisting the construction project, saying that they are the owners of these lands and will be displaced, with nowhere else to go, if the plant goes ahead.
As seen on many other occasions, once again security forces were brought in and used disproportionate force to break the villagers’ resistance back in July and detained more than 30 villagers at the time.
Now a presidential decree has been issued in the country’s official gazette which begins the procedure for land expropriation in the region to make way for the biogas plant construction.
Seçil Ege Değerli, lawyer representing the villagers, criticised the decision saying that “immediate expropriation is an extraordinary method that can be employed only under exceptional circumstances.”
Değerli also described the ongoing process as “legal but unlawful” and stated that “there is no benefit to the overall public nor the villagers, and the decision is solely for the interests of the private (biogas) company.”
We call for solidarity with the resistance and stand against the capitalist exploitation of the environment.
