I was recently in Istanbul having been invited to speak at a conference organised by the Republican People’s party (CHP) Youth, the youth organisation of Turkey’s main opposition party. What I saw on my visit worried me greatly.
Turkey is a democracy on the edge of Europe. But in recent years the rule of former prime minister and now president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised some serious concerns about the direction of the country.
These concerns came to head in 2013 with the Gezi Park protests where 3.5 million people are estimated to have taken to the streets. This was a protest that began as a result of a plan to demolish one of the last green spaces in central Istanbul and replace it with a shopping centre. However, it morphed into a social movement against the authoritarianism of the Erdogan, media and internet censorship, excessive police force, corruption and violation of democratic rights.
These issues received global attention thanks to the violent tactics used by police to disperse to the protests. In total these tactics led to the deaths over 11 protesters and more than 8,000 injuries.
Since then Erdogan’s excesses have continued. He recently moved into his newly-built 1,000-room presidential palace which is estimated to have cost more than £350m.
And I saw on my visit that democracy and freedom of speech are if anything getting worse in Turkey. Our colleagues in CHP Youth wanted to show us Gezi Park where the protests had taken place. When a group of less than 10 of us arrived at Gezi Park we found over 50 police officers patrolling the perimeter of the park, telling us it was closed for the day (for closed, read ‘we’re not having any international political activists in this park whatsoever’).
Later I attended a press conference organised by the CHP Youth in Taksim Square where their branch leader İrfan İnanç Yıldız was due to make a statement to gathered media ahead of the conference. Before he could make his statement several hundred riot police had turned up and began dispersing the gathered CHP Youth members with tear gas. This despite their being absolutely no sign of violence.
Most worryingly when we arrived at the conference venue we found riot police stationed outside along with water cannons. To give you an idea of the absurdity of this I have been to Young Labour events that have been more ill-tempered than this conference. There was absolutely zero sign of protest, let alone violence. The only purpose of the riot police and water cannon were to intimidate the several hundred members of a legal political party (the country’s main opposition party no less) who wanted to attend the conference.
When things like this happen it is difficult to conclude that Turkey is a free and fair democracy. Erdogan’s worrying excesses of the last decade are now descending into a significant more worrying withering of democratic expression.
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Jack Storry is international officer of Young Labour. He tweets @JackStorry
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