Murder Not Accident

LECTURE and TALK
Thursday, 2. December, 2021, 7 pm
language: English and German
entry: free
the event will take place both onsite and online via zoom. to attend online please write an Email with subject „No Accident“ to zentraleremove-this@remove-thiswkv-stuttgart.de

The human rights activists Eylem Can, Murat Deha Boduroglu and Fatih Pinar present the video Murder Not Accident (2019), which is currently on show at WKV. The video is a document on the collectiv fight against workplace homicide in Turkey. The talk will also bring up references to Germany and Stuttgart.

Murder Not Accident documents the collective struggle against work-related murders in Turkey. In 2018, at least 1,872 people died due to preventable causes while working. The annual death toll of occupational diseases is estimated to be at least six times this figure. None of these deaths are registered as work-related, and most of the victims of work-related violence remain unnamed. This is a state of emergency, a corporate crime, and social murder, which remain deliberately ignored by the government and state entities. In 2008, a group of families mourning loved ones, victims of work-related murders, came together. They translated their shared grief into a demand for justice. They named their network Workers’ Families Seeking Justice (WFSJ) and gave the victims a name in this struggle. The Support Group, a solidarity network of urban planners, architects, lawyers, and other activists from Bir Umut Dernegi (One Hope Association), based in Istanbul, share a common cause with the Workers’ Families. Since May 2012, on the first Sunday of each month, the families and the support group have held a Vigil for Conscience and Justice on Galatasaray Square in the center of Istanbul. The vigils were held there seventy-four times and were banned on the 75th occasion. The reasons given for the ban were the precise ones for which the families have fought for so long: national security, public order, and the protection of public health. Still, Workers’ Families Seeking Justice hold on to their demand. Concurrently, since 2012, the support group has published seven almanacs about the murders, tracing the national press coverage and some local, non-published sources, as well as highlighting the families’ demands for memory and justice.

Murder Not Accident, 2019
Video, 34’
Camera by Fatih Pinar, editing by Burcu Kolbay and Fatih Pinar