The Trustee appointed to oversee the municipality of Amed (Diyarbakir), after the much criticised arrest of the democratically elected mayor, has been criticised after the circulation of fake disinfectant was uncovered.
The city is a majority Kurdish city and the scandal has vindicated many who feel that the state’s weak response to Covid-19 has been even worse when it comes to Kurdish regions.
Against the coronavirus pandemic, mobile disinfectant dispensers had been placed in Amed in public spaces, all state authorities and institutions, post offices, hospitals, at the bus station and at the airport for infection prevention.
As it now turned out, these are ineffective hand disinfectants that do not kill the Covid-19 virus. The alleged disinfectant dispensers were already placed everywhere in Amed on April 2, “to provide comprehensive hand hygiene in every situation”, as it was officially called.
After the fraud was discovered, Hasan Basri Güzeloğlu, the governor of Amed appointed trustee to the municipality by the government, dismissed the head of the Health Department Mustafa Korkutan. The bottles with an undefined mixture have been collected after the exposure of the incident into which an investigation has been launched.