Turkey's plans to mandate PCR tests for education, entertainment spark backlash
Voices from both conservatives and liberals rise as the Turkish government slaps obligatory PCR tests on teachers and school staff to allay fears of a new wave of COVID-19 as schools resume in-person education.
Ankara’s requirement that unvaccinated Turks present a negative PCR test for COVID-19 to attend public events and schools has sparked angry reactions from the country’s teachers, who denounced the move as both useless and a violation of their rights.
A conservative labor union urged its members to engage in civil disobedience after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Aug. 19 that members of the education sector would have to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination or proof of recovery from the virus, or undergo regular PCR tests as schools resume in-person education on Sept. 6.
Employees union Maarif-Sen announced Saturday they will start a legal process to annul the new regulations on mandatory PCR tests. “While we go on with the legal process, we call [on] all our members to [engage in] civil disobedience against PCR tests,” the statement said, promising to provide legal support to those who faced pressure at work to take the test.
“We are not anti-vaxxers, and a good many of our members are vaccinated already,” Maarif Sen’s deputy chair Nazmi Berat Kocer told Al-Monitor. “We are against the PCR tests twice a week because we do not believe it would achieve anything except put an additional burden on teachers. There are many problems here as schools start; classes are far too crowded, and we are not allowed to have some sort of hybrid system that would divide them up. There are no additional state subsidies nor personnel available in public schools to ensure hygiene rules can be properly implemented.”
