By Anonymous
Image credit – Unsplash
“I was born in 2003, the year Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power. I have never seen another president in my lifetime.”
As students at LSE who (hopefully) stay informed about global affairs, I assume many of you have seen the protests in Türkiye. Maybe you saw images of thousands in the streets chanting, a protester in a Pikachu costume running from the police, or students being beaten with batons and sprayed with pepper gas. Although the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu triggered the protests, that is just the tip of the iceberg. These protests are not just about the arrest itself, but about how it exposes the unjust use of power and the many injustices that came before it. They are also about what is unfolding now: a wave of repression and resistance that continues to add to the very reasons people took to the streets in the first place.
Eighteen days ago, in the early hours of March 19th, Istanbul’s elected mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was detained at his home by dozens of armed police. This came just days before his party, the CHP (Republican People’s Party), was expected to announce his presidential candidacy. It also conveniently happened just a day after, Istanbul University arbitrarily revoked his diploma without the legal authority to do so; A degree is an essential requirement for eligibility to run for president. In a raid resembling the arrest of a terrorist, his final words were: “I entrust myself to the people.”
Widely seen as Erdogan’s main rival in the 2028 elections, his unlawful arrest was based on hearsay and the testimony of a so-called “secret witness.” Beyond any politician or party, this was an attack, a coup, on Türkiye’s democracy. That is, if there was any democracy left to begin with.
But who is leading this movement? None other than Gen Z university students. Amid all the clichés that surround our generation, Turkish Gen Z is giving a world-class lesson to their elders on how to challenge an authoritarian government. The youthful energy of the protests is also playing a key role in revitalising stagnant progressive parties.
While protests are often divided by political ideology, Turkish Gen Z is showing up with one common goal: putting an end to Erdogan’s reign. Although politically engaged, most of them have little affiliation with any political party. People with starkly opposing views, from ultranationalists to leftists, are standing side by side. No one is trying to hijack the crowd with their own political agenda, and when someone does, they are quickly pushed aside to prevent any manipulation by government supporters.
But why are they being subjected to police violence? After İmamoğlu’s arrest, the government was quick to declare a nationwide protest ban. Yet, this (unsurprisingly) contradicts Article 34 of the Turkish Constitution that states, “Everyone shall have the right to organise meetings and demonstration marches without prior authorisation, provided that they are unarmed and peaceful.”
The Turkish public has protested many times over the years, and therefore are no strangers to protest bans. They are also not strangers to challenging it. The predicament here is that the thin line between rallies and demonstrations is severely blurred. A large portion of these demonstrations have been organised by İmamoğlu’s party, the CHP, under the leadership of Ozgur Ozel in Sarachane where the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality headquarter resides. However, when Ozel leaves, protesters start running away as police start chasing after them, hitting, throwing whoever they find on the floor to start the arrests. The police call themselves “servants to orders” ; but is hitting a woman who is simply walking and striking her leg with a baton, really an order? Is shouting at a protester who is crying from pain, “You are here without permission. You are doing something illegal,” truly an order?
Türkiye is no longer a democracy. It is an autocracy. For years the rule of law has been applied arbitrarily and today the rule of law and our constitution seems to have little to no meaning. It is simply irrelevant to those who hold the power. It’s no surprise that a dictator who fears losing at the ballot box would try to eliminate a political rival. Yet, the reality is dystopian. Since 2019, İmamoğlu has had to re-run an election, combat fake news, and endure countless legal battles. Still, we never imagined things would escalate this far. We always feared it might happen, but we never wanted it to be true. These were all pills that were very hard to swallow.
As I’m writing this from the comfort of my flat in London, 301 university students at the Silivri Prison (where Imamoglu) are sleeping on the floors of cold prison cells for simply exercising their democratic rights. I’m not here for party politics. I’m here to tell you necessarily how party politics and partisanship have hurt my country. While I’m physically in the UK, my heart beats in Türkiye.
Years of injustice. The backsliding of democracy. Political Islam. Rigged elections. Judiciary capture. Unchecked power. Clientelism. Corruption. Protests silenced before they begin, citizens too afraid to speak out for fear of arrest. A censored media, journalists imprisoned. Online surveillance, passports seized. People living in constant fear. I watch everything unfold as I feel my country slipping through my fingers.
Each day, police violence becomes more brutal. Gas canisters, plastic bullets, strip searches of women, punches, kicks. Protesters are called looters and terrorists. Protestors get lured into fake protests by undercover police. Protesters blamed for not going by the rules. But the question I ask is this: Have you ever seen a dictator leave when told to? Has one ever lost an election fairly? Do they even have the courage to?
Each day, people are on the streets in what are the largest protests since Gezi Park in 2013. People chant: “Jump! If you don’t jump you’re a Tayyip supporter” However, they also chant: “Don’t stay silent, because if you do, your turn will come.” But do we find ourselves in this very situation because we have stayed silent for too long?
After years of government, we, the people, are trying to make an autocrat hear us. History shows that tyrants don’t last. They fall. But this is going to be a long journey. We will get tired. We will get angry, sad, and hopeless. But we will always be here. As the world descends into far-right populism, I want you to see that what we are living through in Türkiye, is not normal. Dictators are not normal.
The right protecting the right, like Elon Musk removing tweets that criticise Erdogan, is not surprising. But that doesn’t make it acceptable. We live in a world where facts barely matter anymore. Where we feel increasingly helpless as the powerful abuse the innocent. The world is polarised. Business models control our information systems. The news is overwhelming. The world is burning and we’re trying to put out the fire.
Maybe what I’m trying to say to you is that what’s happening in Türkiye could happen in your country too. When human rights violations are left unchallenged, they become normalised. Under these conditions, anything could be illegal. If I had my name on this article, my passport could easily get confiscated at the Turkish border. Students went to jail for exercising their rights. Doctors falsified assault reports so that lawyers have a harder time protecting their clients in court. Judges pretended to not know about when lawyers asked them the whereabouts of the judicial file prepared to protect witnesses. Police abused lawyers in the Istanbul Courthouse. The Istanbul Bar Association’s management was dismissed. This is not normal.
This isn’t a one-week protest. It’s make-or-break. We must remember: the government is not the state. However, the Erdogan government is at its most powerful stage right now. I won’t accept that we can now, next week or in a month go back to our normal lives. Because our lives haven’t been normal for the past 22 years.
This question is not just Türkiye’s to face. Soon it will confront the world: Can the courage and energy of young people help fix what’s broken and create something strong enough to fight back against the rising threat of authoritarianism?
Maybe the answer is in the popular boycott call that students initiated against government-affiliated businesses and how it continues to unfold. Maybe Erdogan’s AKP will disperse once their pockets are hurt, because the glue holding them together is money. Voting against Erdogan is not enough to be the opposition; you also have to exert yourself to resist their web of clientele.
Maybe one of the only humorous things to happen in these dark times is that, as those businesses desperately try to prove independence from the government, Erdogan fanatics swarmed and government officials visited the boycotted coffee shops and bookshops, only making the businesses’ jobs harder. If the government only feeds 20% of the public, then it’s time for the other 80% to realise that they are the majority. Let’s see if the AKP will manage to maintain its unity and hold on to the national and cultural values it has so desperately tried to conserve.
Erdogan declared 2025 “the year of families,” and said every family needs three children. Well, Erdogan, would you like to have three kids like me?
