Doctors questioning official data and government policy on Turkey’s coronavirus outbreak are facing a growing backlash, including threats of prosecution and a ban on their professional association.
Since the beginning of the outbreak, physicians have spoken out about the true number of cases and deaths as well as raising concerns over a lack of suitable protective equipment in hospitals and the government’s handling of the crisis.
Last week, they organised a nationwide campaign to highlight their worries, including the wearing of black ribbons to mark the deaths of 92 health workers during the outbreak.
This led Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the nationalist party allied to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, to call for the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) to be banned and its leading members to face prosecution.
“The Turkish Medical Association is inciting unfounded doubts and stains about human and public health in today’s sensitive period,” he tweeted last week. “For this reason, the Turkish Medical Association should be closed immediately and without delay. Judicial action should be taken against the directors.”
He added that the TTB’s ribbon campaign was a “poisonous and evil plot” and accused the association of being “as dangerous as corona”.
Although Mr Bahceli’s party is only the fourth largest in parliament, its 48 MPs give the government a majority. He has a record of voicing views that seem maverick but carry weight given his role in supporting Mr Erdogan.
Turkey has recorded more than 300,000 cases and nearly 7,500 deaths since March. The daily figures had slowed but following the easing of restrictions in June have steadily risen to around 1,700 cases and 60 deaths a day.
Medics have long insisted the official figures hide the true spread of coronavirus among Turkey’s population of 83 million.
In a report on the outbreak’s first five months, the TTB said the country was experiencing 10 times as many cases as officially reported.
Esin Senol, a professor at Gazi University’s Faculty of Medicine in Ankara, warned that the capital, which has taken over from Istanbul as the centre of the pandemic, had “become Wuhan” – a reference to the Chinese city where the virus first emerged.
“We see that the number of severe cases is increasing and accumulating,” she said. “The cases we have seen are the tip of the iceberg... We will see much worse ahead of us – this creates much greater concerns.”
Prof Senol warned that the “avalanche of cases” had led to rising infections among health workers, leading to staff shortages.
Such warnings, however, have proved unpopular with the authorities, with a number of medics facing legal action over their comments.
Ozgur Deniz Deger, co-chair of the Van-Hakkari medical chamber in Turkey’s south-east, was summoned by police in March over criticism of the failure to take early precautions. Two months later he was questioned again after he tweeted a question to the health minister about the number of infected health workers.
In both cases he was interrogated in relation to “creating panic and fear among the public”, an offence that carries a four-year prison sentence. Other health staff who have voiced concerns have faced the same charge, with some banned from travel and forced to report to police while prosecutors investigate their remarks.
However, Dr Deger, like other medics who have faced similar treatment, has remained unbowed by the risk of legal action.
“The health of the public and health workers is my priority,” he said. “I’m not going to be afraid to tell the truth. Let this be my badge.”
In response to the pressure on its members, the TTB has called on the government to embrace the input of the medical community.
“If there is to be a response to the assessments made by scientists based on their scientific knowledge, the way to do this is not to open a criminal investigation or threaten criminal action to suppress them,” it said in a statement. “Rather, it is to explain why these assessments are wrong with studies based on scientific method and evidence.”
Human Rights Watch has also called for an end to the investigations.
“The Turkish authorities criminally investigating medical chamber officials is not only an outrageous attack on free speech but impedes the fight against the deadly Covid-19 pandemic and obstructs their legitimate work,” said Hugh Williamson, the group’s regional director.
What is the definition of an SME?
SMEs in the UAE are defined by the number of employees, annual turnover and sector. For example, a “small company” in the services industry has six to 50 employees with a turnover of more than Dh2 million up to Dh20m, while in the manufacturing industry the requirements are 10 to 100 employees with a turnover of more than Dh3m up to Dh50m, according to Dubai SME, an agency of the Department of Economic Development.
A “medium-sized company” can either have staff of 51 to 200 employees or 101 to 250 employees, and a turnover less than or equal to Dh200m or Dh250m, again depending on whether the business is in the trading, manufacturing or services sectors.
HIV on the rise in the region
A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.
New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.
Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.
Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.
Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Motori Profile
Date started: March 2020
Co-founder/CEO: Ahmed Eissa
Based: UAE, Abu Dhabi
Sector: Insurance Sector
Size: 50 full-time employees (Inside and Outside UAE)
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Safe City Group
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Hotel Data Cloud profile
Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Emergency phone numbers in the UAE
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111
Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre
Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EAlexander%20Payne%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Paul%20Giamatti%2C%20Da'Vine%20Joy%20Randolph%2C%20Dominic%20Sessa%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Sanju
Produced: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Paresh Rawal, Anushka Sharma, Manish’s Koirala, Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Jim Sarbh, Boman Irani
Rating: 3.5 stars
