ISTANBUL: As cases and deaths soar, Turkey’s president has instructed people to stay home for nearly three weeks and shut down many businesses as part of the country’s strictest COVID-19 measures yet.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not announce a stimulus package to offset the economic impact of the new restrictions.
With Turkey’s double digit inflation, sinking national currency and businesses in trouble, many Turks already have been struggling financially.
Gozde Aslan, a newspaper seller in Istanbul, said the lockdown would be difficult to weather.
“We have to bring food to our homes, and we live in a period where everything is very expensive,” she said. “May God help us.”
Erdogan announced Monday that a “full lockdown” would begin Thursday and last until May 17. Residents will be required to stay home except for grocery shopping and other essential needs, while intercity travel only will be allowed with permission. Restaurants are allowed to deliver food.
Some businesses and industries will be exempt from the shutdown, including factories, agriculture, health care and supply chain and logistics companies.
The Interior Ministry also published a list of exempt individuals, who include parliament members, health care workers, law enforcement officers and many others. Tourists are also exempt from the round-the-clock curfew.
Aslan’s husband and business partner, Baris, said the Turkish government’s decision came late but was correct. He added: “It’s a very difficult decision for the shopkeepers, for the working people. For this, the state should provide great assistance.”
Earlier this month, Erdogan announced an extension of short labor payments for registered workers whose hours were cut due to pandemic restrictions. Some payments previously were made to small businesses.
Shoe store manager Burcin Yilmaz lamented that he would again have to shut his business. During the past three months, several nearby shops that had been open a long time shut down for good, he said.
“We have to close down and wait and see what happens in the end,” Yilmaz said.
Erdogan said daily confirmed cases would have to rapidly drop below 5,000 for Turkey “to not be left behind” as many European countries start reopening.
“Otherwise, we will inevitably face a heavy price in every area, from tourism to trade and education,” the president said. Turkey relies heavily on tourism to bring in foreign currencies.
Opposition lawmakers blasted the government Tuesday. The leader of the main opposition party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, called on Erdogan to propose a social aid package that would help closed businesses and day laborers in Turkey’s informal economies. He also said urged the suspension of debt enforcement proceedings for some time.
While agreeing with the necessity of a lockdown, Kilicdaroglu said, “People need to eat. They need to live.”
The government has been distributing tons of onions and potatoes this month with much fanfare. Many see it as a clear example of how much Turks are suffering from rising food prices and poverty. The World Bank, in a report published Tuesday, said Turkey’s poverty levels rose from 10.2 percent in 2019 to 12.2 percent in 2020.
In March, the Turkish government split the country into four risk tiers and lifted weekend curfews and allowed indoor dining in many provinces. Coronavirus infections rose again before long, putting most Turkish cities into “very high-risk” categories.
Facing record numbers of confirmed cases, Erdogan in mid-April announced a partial lockdown during the month of Ramadan, bringing back weekend curfews, extending evening curfew hours and closing down restaurants for in-person dining.
Confirmed cases averaged around 60,000 per day during the peak week this month. The country recorded its highest daily death toll on April 21, with 362.
The latest Health Ministry statistics reported Monday showed 37,312 new confirmed cases and 353 deaths. Turkey’s total death toll in the pandemic stands at 38,711.
Full COVID-19 lockdown adds to financial strain in Turkey
https://arab.news/6u5aq
Full COVID-19 lockdown adds to financial strain in Turkey
- President Erdogan did not announce a stimulus package to offset the economic impact of the new restrictions
- A newspaper seller in Istanbul said the lockdown would be difficult to weather
Thousands of Libyans gather for the funeral of Qaddafi’s son who was shot and killed this week
- As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif Al-Islam’s coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him
- Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details
BANI WALID, Libya: Thousands converged on Friday in northwestern Libya for the funeral of Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi, the son and one-time heir apparent of Libya’s late leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was killed earlier this week when four masked assailants stormed into his home and fatally shot him.
Mourners carried his coffin in the town of Bani Walid, 146 kilometers (91 miles) southeast of the capital, Tripoli, as well as large photographs of both Seif Al-Islam, who was known mostly by his first name, and his father.
The crowd also waved plain green flags, Libya’s official flag from 1977 to 2011 under Qaddafi, who ruled the country for more than 40 years before being toppled in a NATO-backed popular uprising in 2011. Qaddafi was killed later that year in his hometown of Sirte as fighting in Libya escalated into a full-blown civil war.
As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif Al-Islam’s coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him.
Attackers at his home
Seif Al-Islam, 53, was killed on Tuesday inside his home in the town of Zintan, 136 kilometers (85 miles) southwest of the capital, Tripoli, according to Libyan’s chief prosecutor’s office.
Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details. Seif Al-Islam’s political team later released a statement saying “four masked men” had stormed his house and killed him in a “cowardly and treacherous assassination,” after disabling security cameras.
Seif Al-Islam was captured by fighters in Zintan late in 2011 while trying to flee to neighboring Niger. The fighters released him in June 2017, after one of Libya’s rival governments granted him amnesty.
“The pain of loss weighs heavily on my heart, and it intensifies because I can’t bid him farewell from within my homeland — a pain that words can’t ease,” Seif Al-Islam’s brother Mohamed Qaddafi, who lives in exile outside Libya though his current whereabouts are unknown, wrote on Facebook on Friday.
“But my solace lies in the fact that the loyal sons of the nation are fulfilling their duty and will give him a farewell befitting his stature,” the brother wrote.
Since the uprising that toppled Qaddafi, Libya plunged into chaos during which the oil-rich North African country split, with rival administrations now in the east and west, backed by various armed groups and foreign governments.
Qaddafi’s heir-apparent
Seif Al-Islam was Qaddafi’s second-born son and was seen as the reformist face of the Qaddafi regime — someone with diplomatic outreach who had worked to improve Libya’s relations with Western countries up until the 2011 uprising.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Seif Al-Islam that included a travel ban and an assets freeze for his inflammatory public statements encouraging violence against anti-Qaddafi protesters during the 2011 uprising. The International Criminal Court later charged him with crimes against humanity related to the 2011 uprising.
In July 2021, Seif Al-Islam told the New York Times that he’s considering returning to Libya’s political scene after a decade of absence during which he observed Middle East politics and reportedly reorganized his father’s political supporters.
He condemned the country’s new leaders. “There’s no life here. Go to the gas station — there’s no diesel,″ Seif Al-Islam told the Times.
In November 2021, he announced his candidacy in the country’s presidential election in a controversial move that was met with outcry from anti-Qaddafi political forces in western and eastern Libya.
The country’s High National Elections Committee disqualified him, but the election wasn’t held over disputes between rival administrations and armed groups.
