News Centre Citizens resisting mining and energy projects that are destroying their livelihoods will gather in Ankara tomorrow. At 08:30, citizens attending the court hearing regarding the suspension of the enforcement of the urgent expropriation decision covering İkizköy, which is part of Milas in Muğla, will subsequently set up a peasants’ podium in front of MAPEG at 14:00.Alamut, Kuyucak, Kurtuluş, Avdan, Akbelen, Kazdağları, Kalemoğlu, Perşembe Yaylası, Fatsa, Bulancak, Sekü, Tirebolu, Çatalağaç, Artvin, Eskişehir, Uşak and Varto, the organisers of the action issued the following statement: “We call on everyone who has heard our voice and believes in our sincerity, and who is fighting for their villages and their homeland, to join us in solidarity.” Speaking to BirGün ahead of the rally, Akbelen activist Esra Işık made the following appeal: “For years in Akbelen, we have been told that we must give up our land, our olive trees, our water and our village. Simply so that a company’s interests, profits and operations can continue.
We, too, say that these lands, where we live, produce, raise our children and bury our dead, are no less valuable than a company’s needs. On the one hand, there are people who wish to continue living here with their villages, their olive trees, their graves and their livelihoods, and to protect the land and the future of this country; on the other, there is a company that seeks to forcibly seize these people’s land in order to make more profit. We do not accept this being called ‘the public interest’.
We are the public; we are the people who live here, who produce here, and who make this country what it is. Moreover, the issue today is not confined to Akbelen alone. Across Turkey, peasants are being pitted against the same licences, the same expropriation decisions and the same corporate interests.
That is why we will not be alone outside the Council of State on 16 September. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with peasants from all corners of the country who are defending their land, their water and their villages. After the hearing, we as the peasants who have come from all over the country to defend our land, will go to the doors of MAPEG, which is selling off our country piece by piece, and we will make our voices heard.
We do not ask for any special privileges, unlike these companies; we simply wish to continue living on our own land. And we no longer want decisions to be made about our lives without us being consulted. These lands are not ownerless; these villages are not places to be abandoned.” Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Yaşam için bir araya gelecekler, published in BirGün newspaper on September 15, 2026.
