18.07.2025 10:02
CHP Ankara Deputy Semra Dinçer protested the olive grove law by taking the podium in the Parliament barefoot and holding an olive branch. Dinçer stated, "I want to step on the fertile, clean lands of this country that have been shaped by labor, not on the lands you have handed over to the blackness of coal. You only value green as long as it is the color of the dollar."
CHP Ankara Deputy Semra Dinçer protested the omnibus bill proposal, which includes opening olive groves to mining activities, by stepping onto the podium barefoot and with an olive branch.
"I DO NOT WANT TO STEP ON THE LANDS YOU HAVE HANDED OVER TO COAL" Dinçer opposed the bill proposal and made the following speech: "I am stepping onto this podium barefoot because I want to step on the fertile, clean lands of this country that have been shaped by labor, not on the lands you have handed over to coal. I want to feel the villagers who live by their labor with every step, the children holding olive branches, and our people who defend life.
"WE ARE FACING ANOTHER MASSACRE LAW" We are facing another massacre law. With this bill proposal, targets have been selected, plans have been made, and sketches have been drawn. Now it is time to pull the trigger. The AKP and its partner will raise their hands for profit, and the olive groves of this country will be slaughtered. Every hand that will rise in favor of this bill proposal will be an accomplice to this massacre. Everyone should know that as CHP, we will not be accomplices to this massacre. This bill proposal brought before us today is an axe aimed at the conscience, nature, and future of this country. You say, 'We will not destroy the olives, we will move them.' Perhaps when you uproot the olive tree and move it to another soil, you do not completely kill it, but you do not keep it alive either. Just like machines that keep a person alive, it is now in a vegetative state. Will you be able to carry the soil, climate, water, birds, and ants of a tree whose roots have been uprooted? Those trees will not survive in other soils. If you say 'it can be moved,' you are just easing your conscience, but you have already moved your consciences elsewhere.
"DID YOU CONDUCT AN OBJECTIVE IMPACT ANALYSIS?" How many thousands of olive trees will be moved in this area, and what is the age of these olive trees? Did you conduct an objective impact analysis showing that the extracted mineral will create more economic value compared to olive production? It is said that 'for 10 years, the producer will be given olive groves from another place, either from KİT or the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization.' Will the villagers be able to obtain the same yield from these lands? Is there enough land to meet the needs of the villagers? If so, where is it located? You say that if the villagers take good care of these olive groves, this lease will be extended for another 10 years. So who will decide whether these olive groves are well cared for? If the land given is kilometers away from the villager's home, will the villager have to leave their home to take care of their olive grove?
"YOU ONLY VALUE GREEN AS LONG AS IT IS THE COLOR OF DOLLARS" You are the ones who slaughter 400,000 trees to extract gold with cyanide in Kazdağları. You have been poisoning the people in Afşin Elbistan for years. You are the ones who confront the villagers with riot police and enter the Akbelen Forests with water cannons. You are the ones who destroy the natural life of rivers with hydroelectric power projects in the Black Sea. You are the ones who turn a paradise like Uzungöl into a concrete pile under the name of a national garden. You are the ones who recklessly hand over our richest drinking water sources to a handful of mining companies. Now you are trying to lay our thousand-year-old olive groves under bulldozers. A leopard does not change its spots. You only value green as long as it is the color of dollars. You have tied the judiciary to the palace, linked education to sects, and health to the market. Now you are also tying nature to mining companies."