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THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE

The World met an unprecedented crisis on 12 December 2019. A novel coronavirus
called “COVID-19” first appeared in Wuhan City of China, later spreading around the
world in a short time. On 10 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared
the disease as a pandemic.

Humanity has faced a serious crisis. All the plans, routine life styles, dreams and
freedoms have been suspended for the sake of health. People had to have a break in
their normal life for a while in the ways never imagined. At the beginning of the
outbreak, unfortunately, some countries didn’t take the pandemic seriously, so were late
for taking measures to prevent the spread of the virus. When the virus spread across the
countries with terrorizing results, the whole world had to take same measures to fight
the pandemic, though it was late.

At the start of the outbreak, when strict measures were launched, it was seen in some
countries that supermarkets and stores were looted, people got panicked and scared.
There were some moments when countries stumbled in guiding their citizens and
maintaining the order. Countries turned in upon themselves, striving to fight against
the pandemic with their own means available.

More than one year has passed since the start of the pandemic. Although the pandemic
is global, fight against it has been mostly at national level. All countries strived to fight
against the pandemic within their own means of health. In this process, countries’
perspective towards their citizens, citizens’ lives and right to treatment, right to live a
healthy life, in short, their rights stemming from being a person, became evident.
As an institution for seeking legal remedies and protecting human rights, the
Ombudsman Institution of Türkiye has been closely following up the fight against
the COVID-19 pandemic in Türkiye as well as across the world. In the meantime, it
has continued to receive complaint applications during the pandemic, and carefully
examined them to resolve the disputes, in this way contributing to the fight against the
coronavirus in the country.

In this respect, the Institution prepared a “Special Report on Türkiye’s Fight against
the Pandemic” highlighting the last six months of the fight against the pandemic. The
Report includes some findings as well as recommendations of the Institution. With
this Report, the Institution intended to reveal the successful practices and actions in
Türkiye’s fight against the pandemic, and also to appreciate the outstanding effort of all
units of the State ranging from the administrators to the health workers.

58 2020 ANNUAL REPORT