The General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs of the Ministry of Interior made a statement about the news about the temporary identity document broadcast on a television channel.
The statement made by the General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs is as follows:
“In order to reduce the victimization of our citizens in the provinces affected by the earthquake and to accelerate the identification of our citizens, measures have been taken in all our provinces since the first day of the earthquake to ensure that no fee is charged for the applications for identity cards, passports and driver's licenses of our citizens, and that photographs and signatures are not taken if available in the system. In addition, our citizens have been provided with the opportunity to obtain their temporary identity document via e-Government without the need to apply for an identity card. As of today, temporary identity documents have been issued to 97 thousand 893 citizens, and 4 thousand 381 citizens have received temporary identity documents via e-Government. How the person will be verified in the application for a Turkish ID card, and what actions will be taken in case the person cannot present a confirming document, are clearly stated in the law and the current legislation.
Due to the absence of any photographs or biometric data to verify their identity information, necessary procedures were established and ID card applications of 2 thousand 534 citizens were received free of charge. No documents, photos or fees are requested from our citizens who have lost their Turkish identity card, no matter which province they apply to the population directorate, and a temporary identity document is issued in a few minutes with only biometric (fingerprint) verification. There is no institutional statement in the face of this approach, which ignores all the facilitating measures taken since the first day of the earthquake, does not take care of public safety, is far from foresight, and ignores the efforts of hundreds of our colleagues who work day and night for our citizens voluntarily from other provinces.