Six more İstanbul airport construction workers were arrested on Thursday, bringing the total number of workers arrested to 34 after a strike on Sept. 14 over substandard working conditions in the construction site.
According to an Artı Gerçek news website report, an investigation has been ongoing since the strike and on Wednesday evening local gendarmes raided the barracks inside the construction site to detain eight workers who were identified during the investigation.
The court on Thursday ruled to arrest six of them and release the other two pending trial. Another worker was also arrested on Wednesday, the report said.
Last week three more workers were arrested by a court because they were protesting delayed rush hour shuttles.
The workers were detained after they started to whistle in protest of delayed shuttle buses at the construction site.
On the second day of the strike gendarmes detained over 400 workers for gathering to protest without a permit and resisting the police.
Twenty-four of them were arrested on Sept. 19.
The workers previously said that an overwhelmingly high number of workplace accidents have occurred, resulting in deaths and injuries on a daily basis.
They also complained about food and housing on the construction site, claiming that their rooms were full of bed bugs and fleas, which led a number of workers to quit.
Workers were reportedly under pressure to finish the project as soon as possible in line with the wishes of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an impossible task according to observers given the size of the project.
According to the Turkish media, the opening of the airport could be postponed until December.