UN Submission: Human Rights Violations in Istanbul, Turkey

SHORTEST SUMMARY

Turkey infringes upon my right to live, to housing / to have a safe environment, right to own property, human rights, whistleblower rights, and continues to psychologically torture me by confining me to a building officially unfit to live in a major earthquake zone, Istanbul. Moreover, retaliatory conservatorship case which continues since 18 months, infringes upon my freedom of speech and is part of the psychological torture. Especially urgent after the April 23, 2025 magnitude 6.2 Istanbul earthquake.

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS AND THE BASIS OF MY CLAIMS

• I am a 58 year old Turkish man with MSc degree in mechanical engineering forced to live in a building officially unfit to live in and should have been demolished 2 years ago per the legal requirement of the official municipality report. The building is located in Moda/Caferaga, Kadikoy, Istanbul, Turkey. The devastating Kahramanmaras/Gaziantep 2023 earthquakes resulted in the death of tens of thousands and many deaths were attributed to substandard buildings and criminal acts by the builders and state/municipality personel. Court cases are ongoing.
• One month after the Kahramanmaras quake, I contacted Kadikoy municipality in Istanbul to investigate "broken column, illegal constructions" allegations in our 49 year old building constructed with sea-sand (now illegal) in high earthquake risk Caferaga Moda neighborhood of Istanbul. Both allegations were later proven true, plus a large pipe was inserted in another column in addition to a broken column/beam connection in the basement.
• Unfortunately, the municipality covered up its own official building inspection report written by two civil engineers, dated March 21, 2023 in collusion with our corrupt building management and apartment owners who had illegally enlarged their apartments (6 out of 11). It ended my inquiry with a "there is no broken column" lie without sending the official report.
• On the internet page I started to publish for transparency since my official building inspection request on March 8 2023, I call the building I live in Moda Crime Building (Moda Suc Apartmani if you search the internet) because I had been calling on the manager and apartment owners to obey the law since 2020 and they were refusing. My blog page contains official documents, WhatsApp screen shots, links to tweets. My Blog link is Moda Suc apartmani
• When the covered-up report was unveiled months later thanks to my online blogging, the municipality continued to ignore the legal requirement explicitly written in the official building report and refused to evacuate the building.
• Eventually, I had to file a criminal complaint on December 1, 2023. However, Turkish judiciary refused to investigate the crimes committed by the Municipality and the building management despite official report and written evidence.
• While Turkish Chief Prosecutor's Office started a criminal investigation, another prosecutor, Huseyin Onelge, dismissed my claims as totally abstract despite all official written documentation and even when Chief Prosecutor Office's case number was on my deposition.
• Yet another prosecutor started a retaliatory conservatorship/guardianship case the very same day as my criminal complaint using my criminal complaint as the only basis for the conservatorship/guardianship case. On the other hand, Kemal Kaya, a lawyer who knows my sister and me since 50 years phoned me on June 8, 2024 and told me that my sister and 2-3 apartment owners had filed a conservatorship case. While he was sure and provided details, I have not seen this in my conservatorship court dossier. My non-resident sister, a US citizen Zeynep Kurtkaya Kayalioglu, uses parking and facilities of our building as storage in violation of Zoning Law and has a share in my apartment and cooperates with the building management. She does not answer my tweets regarding the report and on May 15, 2025 she sent a WhatsApp message there is no legal solution to this.
• Turkish Judiciary refused and refuses to instruct Kadikoy Municipality or Climate, Environment and Construction Ministry, two institutions who have the authority to evacuate the building per legal requirement written in the official Kadikoy Municipality report. That report citing structural risks, gives a month's notice to building manager to urgently provide a university report about the building's structural safety. Failure to provide the required university report initiates building evacuation process which is to be completed within 60 days. Therefore, if the university report is not provided to the Kadikoy Municipality, the building is to be evacuated within 3 months of the date of the report. That would have been June 21, 2023. That's the standart legal framework the municipality applies and many district residents already know this.
• Turkish Chief Prosecutor's office continued its legal process despite the judicial coup by prosecutor Huseyin Onelge dismissing the case, months later I found out with Chief Prosecutor's office's dismissal notice of my complaint. It turns out Turkish Interior Minister declined Chief Prosecutor's request for permission to prosecute former mayor of Kadikoy hence the investigation was aborted. In the dismissal letter, it is seen that Interior Ministry informed my non-existing lawyer of the decision and received no objection. Therefore, I never received any notice and was unable to file an objection.
• I filed an objection to the dismissal on October 8, 2024. I explicitly stated that Turkey was infringing upon my right to live, to housing and ownership of property in addition to pointing out to the 22 counts of criminal conduct by the Kadikoy Municipality. I had written explicitly that it was the duty of the prosecutors to eliminate the earthquake demolition risk of the building by following the legal requirement of the official report.
• I had filed my objection on October 8, 2024 and never heard back. On April 23, 2025 a major earthquake of magnitude 6.2 struck Istanbul. 6.4 is the earthquake building demolition threshold for Turkey. And the risk of other major earthquakes in Istanbul, around magnitude 7.0 or higher continues according to experts. Istanbul earthquake risks are known to everyone in Turkey since the 1999 devastating 7.6 magnitude Izmit earthquake which killed tens of thousands of people. Izmit is a city adjacent to Istanbul and everyone in Turkey knows that Istanbul is very close to the North Anatolian fault line like Izmit.
• My hundreds of tweets to official bodies, Kadikoy Municipality, Climate, Environment and Construction Ministry, Justice Ministry, Istanbul Municipality, Istanbul Bar Association, and the Turkish Military headquarters went unanswered despite my tweet attachments containing the official report and documentation proving my case.
• I tweeted to the Turkish Military headquarters too, because the unlawful building manager, Mikael Yardim, chief responsible for damaging building's column who also had hidden a broken column in the basement while making money off of our building, had placed a Turkish Military entrance card from the 1980 coup period on the windshield of his Range Rover jeep parked outside our building for years. Moreover, upon one Turkish ex-military man's death (Suleyman Esringu) his illegally enlarged apartment in the building was sold by Volkan Yenilmez with Mikael Yardim overseeing renovations and no one complained. Rentals and sales continues in the coffin building that should have been evacuated/demolished two years ago.
• Turkey continues to reject my requests to evacuate the coffin building ("tabut bina" in Turkish) even after the April 23, 2025 6.2 Istanbul earthquake and all my tweets continue to be unanswered. My request for recusal of the judge in the retaliatory guardianship case was rejected after the second court procession dated 1 December, 2024, and the case is now ongoing since 18 months. This is an ordeal. I am trying to protect my own life.