It is with great sadness that this issue of the Bulletin is prepared at an extraordinary time when a massive disaster hit the country. The series of earthquakes, the first of which occurred on February 6 in Kahramanmaraş and affected 10 provinces in total, turned life upside down in this region of the country with the still-continuing aftershocks and caused great material and moral damage. After the search and rescue efforts and first interventions that have been going on for days in the region, the death toll has reached 41 thousand, and more than 110,000 people have survived with injuries.Unfortunately, although Turkey, which is located on two major fault lines, is known to be an "earthquake country", and the fact that the country has been shaken by many earthquakes, such as the 1999 great Düzce earthquake and the 2020 Elazığ earthquake, and the endless warnings of scientists, it has been revealed once again that the administrative authorities did not take the necessary precautions against a possible earthquake and neglected to make preparations to reduce the devastating consequences. Regulations and inspections that will ensure earthquake-resistant construction of public buildings such as schools and hospitals, as well as residences and workplaces, have been unfortunately neglected by central and local governments. Worse, legal regulations such as "zoning amnesties", which are used as a source of income, have served as an invitation to disaster.As a result of the same unpreparedness, the inadequacy of public institutions in terms of training, equipment, and personnel has also prevented the fast, effective, and coordinated execution of search and rescue and first aid efforts after the earthquake. The partisan staffing of the AFAD -and the Red Crescent-without consideration of competence and merit seems to have been the main reason behind inadequate efforts of the state institutions to a large extent.Meanwhile, the government has declared a "state of emergency" in the region due to the earthquake disaster. Although there is no mistake in principle in resorting to the emergency regime, which is a constitutional instrument, there is a widespread concern that we may face a similar situation due to the previous adverse experience we had under the current government. Indeed, the state of emergency that the AKP government declared after the coup attempt in 2016, which was unconstitutional, was utilized as a tool for suppressing the opposition and all kinds of critical voices in and out of parliament, filling the public administration and judicial bureaucracy with partisan cadres. In short, the state of emergency declared in 2016 was an effective instrument for a call to transition to an authoritarian regime.Another measure taken to mitigate the devastating effects of the earthquake was the President's decision to switch to distance education at universities in the spring semester. However, it will be remembered that a similar measure applied for more than two years during the last COVID pandemic period alienated university students from education and deprived them of the human and pedagogical advantages of having face-to-face contact with both their teachers and friends in the school environment. In this case, the accuracy of this decision, which will once again expose the same generation of students across the country to such a serious disadvantage, is extremely doubtful. Perhaps a more appropriate solution in this regard would be to leave these decisions to university administrations according to their special conditions, and should be limited to the earthquake zone, instead of suspending face-to-face education in all universities.On the other hand, civil society has stood the test of time in the face of this disaster. As a matter of fact, besides the organized initiatives such as AHBAP, other non-organized civil initiatives that emerged spontaneously after the disaster acted with great enthusiasm for search and rescue and first aid efforts, and psychological support to the disaster victims. Meanwhile, people all over the country mobilized to support the disaster victims with their means and provided in-kind and monetary aid to the people of the region as much as they could.It is hoped that all of us, especially those who are politically and administratively responsible, will learn from this last bitter experience and show the prudence to take all kinds of measures to prevent new earthquakes that we will definitely encounter in the future.We hope that we will meet you in the next Bulletin with better conditions and pleasing developments.

Kahramanmara ile ilgili hikayeler