TURKEY: Balıkesir Earthquake & more – 12th Aug 2025

Merhaba from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Turkey Update from the 12th of August twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Turkey.

On Sunday the 10th, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit Balıkesir’s Sındırgı district, shaking western Turkey. Sixteen old buildings and two mosque minarets collapsed, with many more damaged. Rescuers pulled five people from the rubble, but an elderly survivor later died. The Interior Minister said teams checked every street and village with the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority to assess damage and urgent needs.

Many locals spent the night outdoors, fearing aftershocks that kept shaking the region. Several tremors exceeded magnitude 4 on the Richter scale and were felt as far south as İzmir and as far west as Tekirdağ.

Phone networks collapsed soon after the main quake, leaving people unable to reach one another. This sparked renewed complaints about phone companies charging high fees despite offering unreliable service during emergencies.

Speaking of tragic news, throughout the week, firefighters fought multiple forest fires across Turkey’s western and southern regions. Authorities fully contained several of them, while others remained mostly under control. Evacuations took place in areas where flames threatened homes and farmland.

On Tuesday the 12th, firefighters finally managed to control a major fire in the northwestern city of Çanakkale that spread to residential neighborhoods, allowing crews to focus on cooling and cleanup efforts. Local waterways and airports temporarily closed to support firefighting efforts. Similar tough conditions continued in the midwestern city of Manisa, where strong winds and dry weather made controlling fires challenging.

Officials continue investigating causes. Teams remain on alert as crews push to prevent new outbreaks during this hot, windy and dry season.

On Friday the 8th, the newly formed National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission under the terror-free Turkey initiative, held its second session in the Parliament’s ceremonial hall under full confidentiality, where the Interior Minister, the Defense Minister, and the intelligence chief briefed members on national security operations.

Officials framed the effort as a historic step toward reconciliation and stability, with the next session set for Tuesday the 12th to further develop proposals for lasting peace and resilience.

On Sunday the 10th, authorities launched a new investigation into journalist Fatih Altaylı, imprisoned since late June on charges of threatening the president, over a video he posted on the 5th of August on his YouTube channel, which has since been blocked.

Altaylı, who sends letters from prison to read on his channel, discussed the Terror-Free Turkey initiative. He said Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party or MHP, sent a poem by a Turkish poet to Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, which Turkey, the United Nations, and the United States consider a terrorist group, alongside a note that praised Öcalan as the “architect of the process”. The gesture challenged the strict nationalist stance of the MHP in the public eye.

The new charges accuse him of spreading false information, risking one to three years in prison. His court hearing is set for October.

Speaking of Altaylı, on Monday the 11th, the journalist jailed in İstanbul’s Marmara Prison had an interview with Ekrem İmamoğlu, the imprisoned mayor of İstanbul from the Republican People’s Party or CHP and the party’s presidential candidate, also held there. Altaylı sent the questions he wrote down through lawyers, and İmamoğlu replied the same way.

İmamoğlu spoke about the ongoing peace process with the PKK, emphasising it involves more than just the ruling Justice and Development Party or AKP. He stressed that peace requires democratic and inclusive efforts, with all parts of society involved. He also said he is trying to learn Kurdish in prison, to connect with Istanbul’s large Kurdish community.

However, his growing engagement with Kurds drew criticism from nationalist supporters.

In other news, on Sunday the 10th, authorities detained lawyer Rezan Epözdemir. He represented families in high-profile femicide cases like Münevver Karabulut, which sparked national debates on justice and women’s safety. His work often challenged powerful figures, making him a controversial figure and exposing him to threats.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office charged him with bribery, aiding the Gülenist Organization, which Turkey holds responsible for the twenty sixteen coup attempt, and political and military espionage. Police searched his home and office, confiscating digital materials. Officials also restricted his passport due to four separate criminal investigations.

Epözdemir denied all accusations and called the detention a setup by a lawyer he had had conflicts with. He said authorities had previously dismissed these allegations after an investigation.

Since we mentioned the police, on Saturday the 9th, law enforcement detained five activists from the Rainbow Association and the Walk for Palestine platform near the Presidential Complex in Beştepe. The group had set out to hand a letter to President Erdoğan, urging stronger action in support of Palestine. Officers stopped them before they could enter the grounds, taking them into custody for questioning.

The incident caused a brief commotion around the complex and drew attention to growing frustration among some citizens over the government’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Reports said the activists planned the demonstration to coincide with heightened tensions in Gaza, hoping to pressure the government into more decisive measures.

On Friday the 8th, the rector of the National Defense University sparked debate by saying the term Türkiyeli, meaning from Turkey in English, doesn’t exist in history or literature. He argued that people identify by their nation, like French or Japanese, and dismissed from Turkey as a new, unnecessary label.

The term Türkiyeli stirs controversy as Turkey’s constitution defines all citizens as Turkish. Some see this made-up label as rejecting national unity and fueling separatist rhetoric that threatens social cohesion. İlber Ortaylı, a prominent historian, weighed in, saying Türkiyeli doesn’t fit logically and joked about its meaning being untranslatable.

On Thursday the 7th, the Mudanya district in the northwestern Bursa Municipality, under the CHP, backed by the police, cleared dozens of unlicensed deck chairs, tables, and umbrellas from Güzelyalı Beach, a public seafront. A local business had taken over the space without permission and charged high prices.

The owner said the AKP, who led the municipality before the CHP, had just fined them and let them operate for over eleven years but said the current mayor ruined local businesses with strict enforcement.

Officers removed all items, fined the business, and reopened the beach to the public. The municipality warned that no one can take over public beaches for private use.

On Sunday the 10th, a video of Hakan Bahadır, the AKP mayor of İstanbul’s Bahçelievler district, went viral after he harshly confronted a market vendor selling tomatoes for fifty Turkish liras, about 1.5 US dollars, which the vendor had bought wholesale at twenty liras, about sixty US cents.

The vendor explained that rising costs, wholesale prices, transportation, and losses from the summer heat pushed the price to at least thirty-five liras, nearly a dollar, by the time it reached the stall, leaving only a fifteen-lira or thirty US-cent profit margin.

Despite this, Bahadır pushed for a price cut, which the vendor accepted. The incident sparked praise from shoppers but also criticism, with many saying the mayor’s tone was disrespectful and ignored the vendor’s challenges. Critics argued that blaming small sellers overlooks wider economic issues, calling on officials to show respect and support local businesses rather than publicly shaming them.

On Monday the 11th, a video of a Turkish expatriate living in Europe complaining about paying traffic fines at Turkey’s border went viral, sparking widespread debate. The expat expressed frustration over having to settle unpaid fines before leaving the country, highlighting a rule enforced since twenty twenty-one. This policy requires all drivers to pay traffic fines before crossing the border.

Most people think that while these expats follow strict traffic rules back home in Europe, they act like Turkey is a place where breaking the rules has no consequences. The reality is different: visitors must obey Turkish traffic laws or risk being stuck at the border until fines are cleared. Officials urge travelers to check and pay fines online before traveling to avoid delays.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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