Buy Me A CoffeeThe following is a Q and A between Luke Sheehan and Deniz Güngör.
Can you summarize the political crisis in Turkey?
First, I must say that in Turkey, a person must have a university diploma to be eligible to run for president. After the main opposition CHP’s Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu announced his presidential candidacy, judicial operations were launched. First, İmamoğlu’s diploma was annulled, then he was detained on March 19 and subsequently arrested. Following this, a series of protest demonstrations were organized in Saraçhane, where the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality building is located.
What is happening in Istanbul? What is the atmosphere like now?
The protests ended due to the interjection of the Ramadan holiday. However, it is safe to say that all these developments have awakened the social opposition. Turkey had not witnessed such large-scale, nearly nationwide protests since the 2013 Gezi Park resistance. Even though the protests have ended, the smallest decision from the government drives the opposition back to the streets.
Recount the key moments of the last few months in your own experience?
One of the most critical moments of the last few months was the police violence during the Saraçhane protests on March 23. After a rally organized by the CHP in Saraçhane, the police attacked demonstrators and journalists near the Bozdoğan Aqueduct with pepper spray, plastic bullets, and batons. (The reason the protesters tried to push through the police stationed at the Bozdoğan Aqueduct was that they wanted to march to Taksim Square. The government has been banning all protests at Taksim Square since the Gezi Park resistance due to fear of its symbolic significance.) Many people were injured, including me. A police officer sprayed pepper gas directly into my face and kicked me in the stomach. Since that day, 301 university students and young people have been arrested and sent to prison. Most of them have now been released, but some are still imprisoned despite serious health issues. Calls for their release continue on social media.
How would you recount İmamoğlu’s path in politics? How did he come to represent a threat to Erdoğan?
Before becoming the mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, İmamoğlu was the mayor of the Beylikdüzü district in Istanbul. He was hardly known before becoming the metropolitan mayor. Until the 2019 elections, Istanbul was governed by Erdoğan’s party, the AKP. Erdoğan once said, “Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey.” For this reason, Istanbul holds great significance for them. When İmamoğlu narrowly defeated the AKP’s candidate Binali Yıldırım in 2019, he first caught Erdoğan’s attention. The election was annulled, and İmamoğlu was subjected to many provocations. However, in the re-run election in June 2019, İmamoğlu was elected mayor by a landslide. After CHP took over Istanbul, corruption under the AKP administration was exposed. Religious cults embedded within the municipality were removed, and a policy of social municipalism was adopted. Projects like municipal daycare centers and public canteens (designed to support the people suffering under the economic crisis) were developed. Despite all the AKP propaganda, İmamoğlu was re-elected in the 2024 local elections.
Since 2019, a large portion of society has expressed the desire to see İmamoğlu as president. This made him a target for Erdoğan. The AKP regime is terrified of losing power, especially since people still demand answers about the $128 billion that went missing from the Central Bank. If the AKP loses power, they know it won’t end well for them.
Compared to previous flare ups and crises [Gezi Park protests 2013], what is different about these events? Apart from factual differences, how does it feel different?
The Gezi Park resistance began as a movement to protect Gezi Park, and the police violence and deaths deepened it. But Saraçhane is a direct response to political maneuvers, increasing repression, arrests, and is directly against Erdoğan. It still is. The protests found expression in universities through academic boycotts, and people from all walks of life took to the streets. The Saraçhane protests were a stand against Erdoğan and his Islamist, authoritarian policies.
How is journalism functioning in this environment?
The police try to prevent journalists from recording as much as possible. Their goal is to keep the torture they inflict from being documented. Often, journalists are detained together with protesters, surrounded by police.
Your colleagues were detained in February, can you describe what happened? Was that business as usual for journalists in Turkey?
Every month in Turkey, journalists are detained or prosecuted for the news they report or for their social media posts. This has become one of the regime’s mechanisms of repression and has sadly become normalized. It’s now rare to find a journalist who doesn’t have at least one lawsuit filed against them. In February, detentions were carried out after BirGün reported on a visit by Sabah newspaper to Istanbul’s Chief Public Prosecutor, Akın Gürlek, in his office. Sabah had also reported on the same visit.
Uğur Koç, Berkant Gültekin, and Yaşar Gökdemir were taken to Istanbul Police Headquarters in Vatan in the evening to give statements and were initially denied access to their lawyers. None of the three were summoned; they were directly taken from their homes. After their statements at the police station were completed around noon, they were referred to the Istanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan. Berkant Gültekin was released after giving his statement to the prosecutor. Uğur Koç and Yaşar Gökdemir were also released by the court with judicial control measures. All they did was report a visit already published by Sabah.
How is the violence being applied in the response to protest? Is it different to the past?
Unfortunately, tactics like reverse handcuffing and pepper spray have become normalized forms of police brutality in Turkish protests.
Can you single out a story of an ordinary family and how they have been affected?
On April 8, university student Esila Ayık was arrested in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district for holding a sign that read “Dictator Erdoğan” at the Kadıköy Dayanışma Stage, accused of “insulting the president.” Ayık suffers from chronic heart and kidney disease. She has collapsed in prison and been hospitalized multiple times. Despite all these health problems, she has not been released. Her father repeatedly pleads, “Please release my daughter,” but Esila remains imprisoned.
Do the pro-Imamoglu people feel a connection to any citizens elsewhere locked in some kind of struggle?
Honestly, I don’t think so. People in Turkey see the struggle here as unique and particular to their own circumstances.
You are 25. You have lived almost your whole life under the government of one leader. What does that feel like for your generation? Do you feel like Turkey can be called a democracy?
Unfortunately, I have lived my entire life under the Erdoğan regime. From the moment he came to power, he embraced an Islamist political identity and had ties with the Gülen movement. However, after the 2016 coup attempt, he pretended those ties never existed and started accusing dissidents of being linked to FETÖ (Fetullahist Terrorist Organization). After the state of emergency was declared in 2016, repression increased, freedoms were restricted, and the economic crisis deepened. I believe this has especially impacted my generation and the ones after me. The generation before us wasn’t afraid to take to the streets to demand their rights. But until the Saraçhane protests, people were silenced by fear — “What if I get arrested, detained, what if I can’t find a job in the future?” Even something as simple as going to the cinema has become unaffordable for young people. Going out for a drink or to the theater has become a luxury. Most of us are unemployed university graduates. People no longer trust the election results, nor the judiciary. So no, as long as Erdoğan’s regime continues, it is not possible to talk about democracy in Turkey.
If you could summarize the current situation with a metaphor, what would it be?
The wall of fear the dictator built over 23 years had already cracked — now it’s crumbling.
Images all copyright © BirGün
Deniz Güngör graduated in 2023 from the Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, Anadolu University in Eskişehir Turkey. Since 2021, Deniz has been working at BirGün Newspaper. She was awarded in the 65th Turkey Journalism Achievement Awards organized by the Turkish Journalists’ Association (TGC) for her interview “The Hope We Carry Is Our Reason to Live”, and again in the 66th TGC Awards for her news report titled “Unauthorized Surgery at a Private Hospital: They Lied to the Judiciary”.
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