1,400+ Arrested in Turkey as Erdoğan Jails Istanbul Mayor & Intensifies Authoritarian Crackdown

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show in Turkey, where protesters took to the streets for a seventh consecutive night, defying a ban, following the jailing of the Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who’s seen as the biggest political rival to Turkey’s authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ahead of the 2028 presidential elections. Since protests broke out, Turkish authorities have detained more than 1,400 people, including students and journalists.

Democracy Now! spoke to Turkish political scientist Ezgi Başaran, an associate faculty member at Oxford University. I began by asking her about the Istanbul mayor’s significance, the arrest, in Turkish politics since being elected mayor.

EZGI BAŞARAN: Ekrem İmamoğlu won the election. He became the mayor of Istanbul in a landmark victory in 2019 and took Istanbul from the grips of the ruling party, first time ever. As you might remember, Erdoğan’s rise to power started with the Istanbul mayorship. And he once said that “One who rules Istanbul rules Turkey.” So, Istanbul has always a big — I mean, his most precious, you know, gift. And losing Istanbul to Ekrem İmamoğlu in 2019 made him extremely angry. That’s why the first election was annulled by, you know, charges of irregularities. But it angered many people, so a rerun happened, and then Ekrem İmamoğlu won with a bigger margin.

But a relentless, protracted, you know, legal warfare happened. And, you know, he’s been accused by calling the Supreme Electoral Council fools, the council that annulled the first vote. And so, he actually — the court sentenced him to over two years, which would, you know, lead into a political ban, but it’s pending appeal. And then several terror charges have been thrown at him since 2021.

And this year — I mean, the last year autumn, 2024 autumn, things have escalated. Pro-government talking heads started saying that Ekrem İmamoğlu is corrupt to his core, and there’s going to be this really patriotic, heroic prosecutor who’s going to take him down and make him pay. And suddenly, people around Ekrem İmamoğlu — this is happening like two weeks ago — campaign staff, contractors, media consultants, suddenly they were slapped with travel bans.

And then came the absurdity last week, beginning of last week. Ekrem İmamoğlu’s 35-year-old university diploma was canceled on bureaucratic grounds, which would disqualify him to run against Erdoğan in a presidential campaign, because —

AMY GOODMAN: Because you have to be a college graduate to run for president?

EZGI BAŞARAN: Exactly, exactly, which is ironic, and I think this is kind of a — now in the playbook of the authoritarians. There’s gaslighting, because, you know, there is also an enigma about Erdoğan’s himself, Erdoğan’s own diploma. I mean, we have never seen his diploma, and many people think that he only has a two-year-old — I mean, two-year, kind of a in-between diploma, not a university diploma. So, now he’s accused of — Ekrem İmamoğlu — not having a diploma.

Two days later, he’s arrested. A 121-page of interrogation report was published, leaked, whatever you say. I read it. And the questions — I mean, the allegations are based on three anonymous witnesses, no concrete evidence, no, you know, chief prosecutor filing showing any financial crime documents or anything, just rumors through these witnesses. And now Ekrem İmamoğlu is both accused of running an organized crime, being a leader of an organized crime, that — you know, financial crime, and also a simultaneous investigation is also underway that he’s also supporting the outlawed Kurdish militant group PKK. And now he’s —

AMY GOODMAN: So, let me go to that issue. Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has accused the opposition CHP party of fueling terrorism, referring to the massive protests that have erupted since the arrest and detention of the Istanbul mayor last week. This is the president.

PRESIDENT RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN: [translated] The opposition, the Republican People’s Party, attempted to provoke our nation over this corruption operation. They have been doing everything they can for four days to disturb the peace of the nation and polarize our people, from insulting anyone they encounter to attacking our police officers, who are only doing their jobs, from intimidating our members of the judiciary who are investigating corruption reports to suppressing the national will with street terrorism. They have done it all.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to this, Ezgi Başaran, to the president of Turkey?

EZGI BAŞARAN: I really don’t want to be in the position to respond to him, but I will try. I mean, it is terrifying to be a person with integrity and intellect in Turkey, because, look, we’re seeing the arbitrariness, the breakdown of seriousness in the judicial system. We are seeing a system where hearsay is enough to arrest a politician who won reelection just a year ago, with 4.5 million votes, 51% of Istanbul’s electorate. And, you know, if that happens to Ekrem İmamoğlu, what could happen to anyone else who voice dissent or challenge the status quo?

But same thing, this is terrifying, yes, but also the fear of a — the wall of fear, that we say in Turkey, it has cracked, that kept people in. And, you know, students, octogenarians, they all fled to the streets to ask for — I mean, to protest what has happened, because everyone knows that this is politically motivated and that Erdoğan is scared that he’s not going to win against Ekrem İmamoğlu. So, the political motives are just very conspicuous. But, you know, people are on the street. The mottos are really sweet. The youth are just finding all kinds of ways of presenting their contentions.

But the Turkish government is what is called a high-capacity undemocratic state, in political science parlance, which means strong on repression, weak on rights. So, they are doing what they know — that they know best: water cannons, tear gas, plastic bullets. And like you said at the beginning, a thousand are being detained. And we just learned just now that more than 250 are arrested.

And he’s not going to back down, Erdoğan, because that will be detrimental to his rule. I mean, he’s just going to ramp up its repression of the streets and this legal warfare that would — what we hear, would, you know, encompass more students, journalists, politicians, businessmen, academics and artists, actually, in the coming weeks.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the detention of journalists, the arrests? And we talked about 1,100 people arrested so far. Also, 10 journalists, at least, detained both in Istanbul and İzmir: one of the journalists detained covering the protests outside Istanbul City Hall, nine others detained in dawn raids. And what this means for press freedom in Turkey?

EZGI BAŞARAN: Amy, there’s no press freedom in Turkey. I mean, whatever’s left of, you know, several news outlets who are trying very hard to financially survive is also, you know, becoming moot in a way, because, I mean, news is costly, and you can end up in jail. But also, you can’t really survive, you know, do your work or do your reporting. And my colleagues are still trying to do their best, but, you know, every day there’s something, a terrorism charge or insulting, you know, the nationals — I mean, a public official or, you know, jeopardizing national security, are those charges that’s thrown at my colleagues, will end up in jail, at least lose their job or lose their license to, you know, operate as journalists. Those 11 journalists were just doing their jobs.

But, you know, at the peak of the protests, while we were waiting the decision of the courts, all of a sudden, the board of, you know, broadcasting in Turkey just all of a sudden tweeted that if they continue to go live from the field, from, you know, just — you know, if you continue the — anyone continuing the live stream of the protest will lose their license. And just like that, we lost the live stream from, you know, Saraçhane or Taksim from Istanbul. So, this is how — this is the environment that Turkish media is operating.

AMY GOODMAN: The talk about voices being shut out, I wanted to ask you about the richest man in the world, about Elon Musk and his social media platform X, which has reportedly suspended hundreds of accounts belonging to opposition activists and others in Turkey. Can you talk about the significance of this?

EZGI BAŞARAN: I mean, like I said, the gaslighting part is just tremendous. They’re actually seriously playing with our nerves at some point. I mean, we know that, I mean, Elon Musk is detested among liberals and pro-democracy people in Turkey because of his sleazy meetings with Erdoğan and, you know, its covert or overt negotiations in terms of, you know, giving names or providing data of certain individuals that Turkish intelligence or Turkish — any Turkish state official asks for. So nobody’s surprised how, you know, Elon Musk operated, because they are in such a good relationship. And Musk has always something in the game. You know, maybe he’s just thinking of coming and having a Starlink over Turkey. So, he’s just — he doesn’t have any principle, and that’s why he gets along well with a very problematic, powerful leader like Erdoğan.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end by asking you, as you cover world politics from Oxford in the U.K., your thoughts on what you see across the pond here in the United States, your reflections over the past two months. And do you see similarities with what’s happening in Turkey?

EZGI BAŞARAN: Shall I say the truth?

AMY GOODMAN: Please.

EZGI BAŞARAN: OK. So, I think what allowed Erdoğan to do what he did was, you know, the environment, the climate of impunity. There’s a war in Europe. Turkey’s military might be needed. Erdoğan could play a role in EU’s new defense plans. He has drones. He has troops. The geography is behind him. Netanyahu just broke another ceasefire. He kills and kills. There is no — I mean, there is no impunity, and he’s not a political pariah. And Trump dismantled America’s democracy. He keeps doing that every day. He is mimicking Erdoğan’s playbook. Like, only the ones that really watched Turkey in the last decade and a half would realize that it took more than a decade to dismantle a Turkish institution to capture the state. But, you know, Trump is doing the same. And it is the public now on the streets in Turkey is our only hope.

AMY GOODMAN: Turkish political scientist Ezgi Başaran, associate faculty member at Oxford University, speaking to us from there. Her Substack is Angle, Anchor, and Voice. We’ll link to the full interview on what’s happening in Turkey today at democracynow.org.

As we conclude our show, a very happy birthday to Nermeen Shaikh, our dear Democracy Now! co-host. We miss you, Nermeen. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.