The Turkish police attacked members of the Turkey Workers’ Party (TİP) at a rally on Sunday evening, held to protest against the Red Crescent’s sale of tent stock to an earthquake relief charity, after a scandal around the controversial deal had broken out earlier in the day.
The TİP members intended to march from the party’s district headquarters in İstanbul’s Kadıköy to the nearby Red Crescent building.
Police intervened, violently attacked the protesters, and made at least 100 arrests, according to Gazete Duvar. TİP’s İstanbul head and several provincial and district officials were among those taken into custody.
The police also surrounded the party’s Kadıköy headquarters, which has been used as a coordination centre for the distribution of humanitarian aid to southern Turkey hit by powerful twin earthquakes on 6 February and continued high-magnitude aftershocks.
The left-wing TİP leader, Erkan Baş, on social media condemned the violent police response to Sunday’s protest.
“The government, which did not turn a hair for the earthquake, attacked our party members who wanted to make a press statement on the news about the Red Crescent selling tents. There are earthquake victims among those attacked,” he said.
Red Crescent officials on Sunday admitted selling tents produced by one of its affiliated manufacturers to a charity on the third day following the 6 February seismic shock.
The state disaster relief agency sold all 2,050 tents in its stock for TL 46 million ($2.5 million) to Ahbap, an earthquake relief charity association set up by musician Haluk Levent.
While the Turkish public debate whether it is proper that the Turkish Red Crescent sold tent stock in the aftermath of the 6 February earthquakes, and whether the deal price was reasonable, new evidence came to the fore on Monday regarding the Red Crescent’s commercial affairs.
Levent announced on Twitter that Ahbap also bought food supplies from the Red Crescent, for TL 14 million [$741.250], to be disturbed to earthquake survivors.
The head of the Turkish Red Crescent, Kerem Kınık, admitted to the transaction, but in defence said that Ahbap bought the food supplies from a Red Crescent-affiliated company.
“The Red Crescent has been delivering donations made to those in need and has never sold them,” Kınık said.
Kınık on Sunday also admitted to the tent sale, but said that the tents were sold by another Red Crescent-affiliated company, Çadır ve Tekstil A.Ş.
The Red Crescent has been heavily criticised over the last few years involving its charitable status, after the organisation was restructured and incorporated producers of bottled water, biomedical supplies, tents, textiles, and health equipment. It also began to focus on investments, technological innovation, construction, maintenance services and logistics.
Opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker, Gürsel Tekin, said on Monday that the transition of the Red Crescent into a profit-seeking holding company was against the organisation’s founding principles.
Tekin requested parliament release evidence of the Red Crescent’s real estate sales from the past five years, as well as bank transfers and details of any partnerships established with domestic and foreign companies.
