Two lawyers from the Turkish capital of Ankara have filed lawsuits against China, accusing the country of harming Turkey by covering up the COVID-19 outbreak in its initial stages, the Ahval news website reported.
Lawyers Melih Akkurt and Selenay Akkurt accused the Chinese government of negligence and silencing the Chinese doctors who tried to inform the public about the novel coronavirus, according to the Hürriyet daily.
The attorneys said Chinese authorities did not do enough to initially contain the COVID-19 outbreak, attempting to cover up their prevention response and developments in China’s Wuhan province, where the coronavirus reportedly originated.
In December the Chinese government announced its first case of COVID-19, which had infected almost 4.5 million people worldwide at the time of writing.