{"id":1062856,"date":"2023-05-31T16:29:49","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T16:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1664449"},"modified":"2023-05-31T16:29:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T16:29:49","slug":"erdogans-new-presidency-has-started-as-it-means-to-go-on-with-arrests-and-repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/05\/31\/erdogans-new-presidency-has-started-as-it-means-to-go-on-with-arrests-and-repression\/","title":{"rendered":"Erdo\u011fan\u2019s new presidency has started as it means to go on, with arrests and repression"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Sunday 28 May, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan won Turkey’s presidential run-offs. His victory came amid allegations of violent intimidation of Kurdish voters<\/a>\u00a0and electoral fraud<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Erdo\u011fan<\/span> has been in power for over 20 years. He took office<\/a> as prime minister in 2003, and president in 2014. Since then, hungry for autocratic control, he has pushed for dictatorial powers for the presidency<\/a>, built himself a $350m palace in Ankara<\/a>, and replaced over 100 elected mayors<\/a> in Bakur with state approved appointees.\u00a0Bakur is the part of Kurdistan within the borders of Turkey. On top of this, Erdo\u011fan<\/span> has waged a constant war against Turkey’s Kurdish Freedom Movement, with at least 10,000 people currently imprisoned<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Erdo\u011fan: a<\/span>\u00a0presidency built on militarism<\/h2>\n

Internationally, Erdo\u011fan<\/span> has been an expansionist militarist; bombing Iraq<\/a> and invading<\/a> and occupying North and East Syria. He has used poison gas<\/a> against Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) guerillas in Iraq, as well as both chemical<\/a> and white phosphorous weapons<\/a> against the people of Rojava. Erdo\u011fan<\/span> has allied with Daesh<\/a> (ISIS), and created proxies in Syria such as the Turkish Free Syrian Army. Since the 2018 occupation, Turkey’s allies have plundered Afrin’s economy<\/a>, and replaced Kurdish residents<\/a> with pro-Turkish Arabic colonists.<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise then that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Al-Nusra), the right-wing Islamist group currently in control of the Syrian city of Idlib, extended congratulations<\/a> to Erdo\u011fan on the election result. <\/span><\/p>\n

During the 2019 invasion of North and East Syria, Turkey and its proxies carried out assassinations<\/a>, massacres, torture, and rapes<\/a>. Sadly, now that Erdo\u011fan<\/span> has won another term a new invasion of North and East Syria is much more likely.<\/p>\n

Erdo\u011fan<\/span> has also presided over militarist interventions in Libya<\/a>, and provided military support<\/a> to Azerbaijan for its conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh too. He has consistently ramped up militarist rhetoric against Greece<\/a>, as well as using the ongoing refugee crisis<\/a> and war in Ukraine<\/a> to his benefit internationally.<\/p>\n

Within Turkey, Erdo\u011fan<\/span> has played the conservative populist card. He has<\/span> blamed LGBTQ+ people for the Covid-19 virus. Several of his election campaign statements<\/a> were deeply homophobic. He is an outspoken misogynist<\/a> too – in 2021 famously pulling out of the 2011 Istanbul Convention<\/a>. The convention requires governments to adopt measures to prevent violence against women.<\/p>\n

Unfair presidential election<\/h2>\n

Before the 14 May 2023 election, members of the Green Left Party (YSP) in Colem\u00earg (Hakkari) told the\u00a0Canary <\/em>that they expected arrests and repression if Erdo\u011fan won. One YSP member in Hakkari told us<\/a>:
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

If AKP (Erdo\u011fan’s Justice and Development Party)<\/span> wins, we will not be waking up in our beds, we will be waking up in prison.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

YSP ran in the parliamentary election, gaining 63 seats<\/a>. The party wants to completely change the face of Turkey<\/a>. Their ambitions go beyond states and parliamentary democracy. They want to rewrite the Turkish constitution, and create radical peoples’ democracy at a grassroots-level across Turkey. YSP chose not to stand a presidential candidate. Instead they advised their supporters to make a tactical vote for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, in the hope of finally unseating Erdo\u011fan<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Kurdish voters faced violence and intimidation at polling booths for the second time in a month on May 28. Medya News <\/em>wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Kurdish-majority regions witnessed significant support for opposition candidate Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu in the presidential run-off vote, just as in the first round of elections. However, reports have emerged of supporters and representatives of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their extremist Islamist partner H\u00dcDA-PAR interfering with voters and observers, particularly in areas where K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu had garnered significant support in the first round. The presence of an increased military mobilisation in the region further heightened tensions and uncertainty surrounding the elections.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) criticised the election process. They said that there was an “unfair playing field” for both rounds of elections in May. They reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

biased media coverage <\/span>and the lack of a level playing field<\/span> gave an unjustified advantage to the incumbent [Erdo\u011fan<\/span>].
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arrests and torture<\/h2>\n

Since 28 May’s run-off election, a wave of arrests of Kurdish Freedom Movement figures is already underway. On Monday 29 May, Special Operation Police carried out raids<\/a>, kicking in doors, breaking windows, and assaulting people in Colem\u00earg in the far southeast. They kicked and punched detainees, and struck them with the butts of rifles.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Freedom reported<\/a> that one detainee was tortured for two hours by the Special Operation Police. Police detained Mustafa Bor in Gever (Y\u00fcksekova in Turkish). The local hospital treated<\/a> Mustafa for fractures, severe bruising, and bleeding later that day.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in the city of Batman, police arrested 20 people<\/a> for making a hand gesture associated with the Kurdish Freedom Movement during a victory parade for Erdo\u011fan<\/span><\/span><\/span>. They even arrested a journalist for reporting the incident.<\/p>\n

The repression follows a wave of pre-election arrests across Bakur and Turkey. At least 180 people<\/a> were arrested prior to 28 May’s run-off election, including many YSP members<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ‘spirit is still alive’<\/h2>\n

Vala Francis is an internationalist who has observed both elections as part of an international delegation called for by the People’s Democratic Party (HDP). After 28 May’s run-off election, she warned of more arrests to come:<\/p>\n

Everyone expects masses of arrests to begin in the next months, especially for all the election work. But also a more general crackdown; literally thousands of people already have ongoing political cases. It\u2019s really a critical time to think of ways to help people practically, on the ground.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Vala still sees great hope in the spirit of the people. She wrote:<\/p>\n

The war is deeply psychological. Maybe it doesn\u2019t seem obvious from the outside, but people resist on every front. Some people seem to have a spring inside of them, like water that emerges from the ground. It doesn\u2019t stop. It makes everything in its path clear and luscious for new possibilities. This spirit is still alive, even if by necessity it mostly exists in the shadows. All parts of Kurdistan are connected, and the strengths, and the struggles, and the weaknesses in one part feeds into and is substantiated by every other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

‘I don\u2019t feel defeated’<\/h2>\n

Vala’s faith in the spirit of the movement is borne out by her recent interview with Ceylan Ak\u00e7a of the YSP. Ceylan was elected to the Turkish parliament on 14 May. Responding to Erdo\u011fan<\/span>‘s victory, Ceylan said:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t feel defeated. Of course people are digesting the results now, that maybe there\u2019s another five years with Erdogan. It\u2019s okay to feel sad, to feel discouraged. But just after we get through that feeling, that\u2019s when its time to get back to work. We will work to strengthen our local offices. Everyone here has a court case – they have at least six years of prison sentence dangling over their heads, and yet they still come and work. And we will make sure that we will protect and defend everything that we have accomplished in the last two decades, and in the time before – we will hold onto this, defend this, and we will build on it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She quipped:<\/p>\n

This authoritarian system wasn\u2019t built over night, so it wont take a single night to get rid of it. But we’re almost halfway done, if we keep on working on this and fighting for this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One thing is clear, and that is the struggle for people’s democracy, and against Erdo\u011fan<\/span>‘s militaristic, dictatorial rule, is far from over. People will re-organise and renew the struggle on fresh fronts. The revolutionary movement that is challenging Turkish fascism is an internationalist one. Those of us who support the fight for radical democracy in Turkey need to be ready to stand with our comrades in whatever way we can, because the next months and years are going to be a hard fought struggle.<\/p>\n

Featured image via Screenshot\/YouTube<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

By Tom Anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Canary<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday 28 May, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan won Turkey\u2019s presidential run-offs. His victory came amid allegations of violent intimidation of Kurdish voters\u00a0and electoral fraud. \u2026 <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n

By Tom Anderson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1537,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441,7486,365,8291,165,196,1320,204],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062856"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062856"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1066404,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062856\/revisions\/1066404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}