PROJECT INDEX

On March 11, 2012, eleven workers died due to a fire in their accommodation at the large construction site of the Marmara Park Shopping Center in Istanbul. Crime scene specialists from the police determined that probably electric heaters had triggered a short circuit. The workers were doomed by their nylon tents, which were easily flammable, too close together and had only one exit each. It was sheer luck that the fire did not spread to four other workers’ tents. Just after the fire, the official line of accountability was shifted by the responsible construction company. The jurisdictional investigation around the workers’ deaths was followed by a court verdict that awarded the blame to sub-subcontractors of the German Company ECE Group. ECE Group was acquitted after filing a lawsuit to the Supreme Court. MAD Istanbul, an NGO concerned with urban rights and jurisdiction, aimed at problematizing the shift of responsibility zones and questioned the neutrality of the court verdict.