Turkey In Turmoil

"We are obliged to do this, there is nothing else we can do to earn good money. A regular job pays 800 lira [$414] a month. As miners, we earn 1,500 lira [$780]. That's why we do it."
Mustafa Corum, 31, Soma, Turkey

"The incident with this advisor is one of many things coming together that paints a picture of a Turkey that is now clearly a country that is turning illiberal, if not authoritarian."
Former Western diplomat

"Do his responsibilities include beating up and kicking protesters or citizens? On which legal grounds was he given this authority?"
Ugur Bayraktutan, Turkish lawmaker

"Normally, in a Turkish cemetery, people are very emotional and crying loudly in their mourning, but here they are quiet. I think it is because they are in shock."
Ibrahim Unlu, pensioner, Izmir

Chief of Chaplain Mehmet Gormez performed funeral prayers for 11 miners in Balikesir

The town of Soma, with its 105,000 people, employs 50 full-time gravediggers. And lately, they have been working around the clock. Still, they've been unable to keep up with the demand. Plot after plot of graves stretch as far as the weeping eye can make out, piles of upturned earth beside them. And more will have to be dug. A massive earth-moving machine has been brought in to assist.

One man, asked if he believes the prime minister cared about the dreadful mine explosion and its hundreds of victims, he sarcastically responded: "Oh yes, he cares a lot". On the other hand, he said as well that coal mining was the simple "destiny" of people in the region close to the Aegean Sea since "There is nothing else to do here".

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When Recep Tayyip Erdogan travelled to Soma he was met by angry protesters who heckled him. Skirmishes between police and demonstrators forced the prime minister to seek refuge in a supermarket until he could be safely whisked off in a black government vehicle. But not before he confronted and berated a protester by screaming at him that he was an "Israeli sperm", thus accrediting himself as an anti-Semite as well as a failed diplomat.

He was, however, outdone by the actions of one of his principal aides, Yusu Yerkel, who became enraged when a protester kicked a vehicle in the prime minister's convoy leading police to leap upon the man, forcing him to the ground, enabling Mr. Yerkel to kick him repeatedly. The photographs taken showing the prostate, police-restrained protester being repeatedly kicked by Mr. Yerkel will be recalled for posterity.

The photograph of Yerkel was quickly circulated on Twitter, with user MarquardtA describing the scene as 'insane'

A thousand trade unionists gathered in Ankara marching toward the labour ministry, some among them wearing miner's helmets. Some carried banners that read: "The fires of Soma will burn AKP" and "AK murderers". Mr. Erdogan's ruling Justice & Development Party is accused of having dismissed a parliamentary motion brought by the opposition Republican People's Party to investigate Soma mines safety procedures.

Mining accidents were "ordinary things", said Mr. Erdogan dismissively as he was being confronted by protesters, earning the enmity of those who don't agree. His administration's disinterest in trying to solve the poor safety record of the Turkish mining industry has not earned him many supporters from within that community. Nor among middle-class Turks who last year protested against the government's close links to property developers.