Photo illustration by John Lyman

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Turkey’s Long Quest for the Rule of Law and Democracy

The traffic was at a complete standstill on Atatürk Boulevard as I tried to reach Istanbul’s City Hall in the Sarachane district on March 20th, just one day after Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was detained by Turkish police on sweeping allegations of corruption, extortion, bribery, money laundering, and terrorism. After abandoning my car on a side street leading toward Sarachane Square, I stepped into a torrent of noise: the voice of Özgür Özel, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), echoed across the crowd, amplified by thousands of chanting protesters.

“Everywhere is Taksim! Resistance is Everywhere!” came the cry—an echo from 2013’s Gezi Park protests. Some demonstrators carried coffins symbolizing the death of justice. Others waved placards with barbed slogans like “How I Met Your Dictator” and “Pepperspray is My Perfume.” When Özel shouted, “Wherever we go, we will fill the squares,” the crowd roared back, “Özgür, take us to Taksim!”

For President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, this was a nightmare revisited: the specter of Gezi. A decade may have passed, but its threat—both symbolic and real—still looms large.

What began in 2013 as a sit-in to oppose the demolition of a small green park near Taksim Square metastasized into the largest popular uprising in modern Turkish history. The protests were a searing indictment of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its creeping authoritarianism. Eight people were killed. Thousands were injured. And while the demonstrations formally lasted just over two weeks, their consequences reshaped the regime’s relationship with dissent. Since then, Taksim Square has been off-limits for protests. Government permits for demonstrations—on May Day, Women’s Day, Pride—have been pushed to the outskirts.

The government’s response to Gezi was not just repression; it was also a wholesale reinterpretation. The AKP has labored to recast the protests not as a spontaneous uprising but as a foreign-backed plot, a Western conspiracy to topple Erdoğan’s government.

Ekrem İmamoğlu rallying supporters in 2019 while running for mayor
Ekrem İmamoğlu rallying supporters in 2019 while running for mayor. (Wikimedia)

The result has been what one might call a postmodern witch hunt—an ongoing, methodical campaign against those even remotely associated with Gezi. Academics, journalists, lawyers, urban planners, and human rights defenders have all found themselves ensnared in the state’s expanding prosecutorial dragnet. The list of the convicted—Osman Kavala, Mücella Yapıcı, Hakan Altınay, Tayfun Kahraman, Can Atalay, Mine Özerden, and Çiğdem Mater—reads like a who’s who of Turkish civil society. Their common crime: allegedly attempting to overthrow the government.

To understand this purge, I spoke with investigative journalist Timur Soykan, a frequent contributor to BirGün and formerly of Halk TV.

“The AKP was not satisfied by simply winning the elections and becoming the ruling party; they essentially desired to completely transform the deep state and the regime, through making use of the justice system as a weapon,” he told me.

Soykan described the alliance between the AKP and the Fethullah Gülen movement, an Islamist network that had long cultivated influence within Turkey’s judiciary and police. During their heyday, the two groups engineered a series of high-profile trials—Ergenekon and Balyoz—that targeted military officials, secularists, and journalists, effectively dismantling the old guard. But that alliance crumbled spectacularly after the failed 2016 coup attempt, which the government blamed squarely on Gülenists. The judiciary was purged once more, and judges loyal to the AKP–Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) coalition took their place.

According to Soykan, this restructuring allowed Erdoğan to weaponize the judiciary with remarkable efficiency.

On April 10th, Soykan himself was detained along with fellow journalist Murat Ağırel of Cumhuriyet. They were arrested at their homes at dawn on dubious charges of “blackmail and making threats.” The real crime? Publishing exposés on how a figure tied to illegal betting managed to purchase both a bank and a television station, raising uncomfortable questions about regulatory oversight. The man, now in prison, filed retaliatory claims against the journalists, and prosecutors seized the opportunity to criminalize their work. It was, Soykan argued, a clear attempt to turn investigative journalism into a punishable offense.

The pattern is now familiar. Critical media outlets like BirGün and Cumhuriyet have faced government pressure for years, and their coverage of İmamoğlu’s arrest in March—an event that sparked the largest protests since Gezi—was especially unwelcome to Ankara. Every time the regime feels threatened, it uses the judiciary to silence dissent, Soykan told me.

Lawyer Enes Ermaner, who represents both Soykan and Ağırel, called their detention “unlawful” and posted on X that it was evidence of Turkey’s adoption of “Enemy Criminal Law”—a chilling doctrine in which individuals are treated not as citizens, but as threats to be neutralized. While the journalists were ultimately released under judicial control, the conditions of their release—mandatory check-ins three times per week, a ban on foreign travel—reflect how far the justice system has been bent.

Soykan pointed to Erdoğan’s enduring fear of public protest. Gezi taught him that the streets could challenge him. In the aftermath, the government curtailed independent unions, outlawed pride marches, shuttered civil society organizations, and neutered the press. But the regime’s deepest fear remains the spontaneous, combustible energy of a crowd.

To neutralize this threat, the AKP has worked tirelessly to reframe Gezi as a treasonous plot. Erdoğan often speaks of foreign agents, outside agitators, and cabals of conspirators. The story is no longer about trees in a park; it’s about preserving national sovereignty from phantom enemies.

That’s how philanthropist Osman Kavala came to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Others—Can Atalay, Çiğdem Mater, Mücella Yapıcı, Mine Özerden, Hakan Altınay, Tayfun Kahraman, and Yiğit Ekmekçi—received 18-year sentences. Their real crime wasn’t treason. It was refusing to remain silent.

Even those far removed from politics haven’t been spared. Talent agent Ayşe Barım was arrested on January 27th on charges of attempting to overthrow the government. Her supposed offense: encouraging celebrities to support the Gezi movement. A lower court ordered her release, but the prosecutor’s office appealed, and she was swiftly rearrested. The judge who ordered her release, Fatih Kapan, now faces a disciplinary investigation.

On March 19th—the same day as İmamoğlu’s arrest—freelance journalist and political commentator İsmail Saymaz was detained on Gezi-related charges. By March 21st, he was under house arrest, accused of aiding an attempt to overthrow the government.

Reflecting on this spiral of repression, Soykan offered a grim summation: “The government basically suggests that they could detain and convict anyone based on made-up scenarios even in the absence of any real criminal activity. Once the government perceives an individual as a threat to its existence, they tend to use the Gezi events as a practical tool to accuse the individual as a terrorist and thus marginalize him/her, as they have done with the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases in the past. Therefore, we could clearly observe how the justice system has become politicized and weaponized in relation to the Gezi movement.”

For Erdoğan’s government, the trauma of Gezi is not just political—it is existential. And so long as that fear endures, Turkey’s long, uneven struggle for democracy and the rule of law remains far from over.

Gezi Park protests in 2013
Gezi Park protests in 2013. (Zsombor Lacza)

The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu sent political shockwaves through Turkey. At 53, the charismatic CHP leader is widely viewed as the only serious contender capable of unseating Erdoğan at the ballot box. His detention, under the broad and well-worn guise of a graft and terrorism probe, has been denounced by supporters as nothing short of a political coup. Erdoğan, it seems, has managed to either jail or sideline every major rival capable of mounting a serious challenge—Selahattin Demirtaş of the pro-Kurdish HDP (now DEM), and Ümit Özdağ of the far-right Zafer Party, among them. Ümit Özdağ has since been released.

Despite the immediate imposition of a protest ban, demonstrations erupted with astonishing force. For five consecutive nights, Sarachane Square, outside City Hall, overflowed with protesters. The outrage quickly spread beyond Istanbul, flaring up in at least 55 of Turkey’s 81 provinces. Initially restrained, the police shifted tactics after a group of student demonstrators attempted to break through barricades beneath the historic Valens Aqueduct en route to the heavily symbolic Taksim Square. Since then, the nightly ritual has played out with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and water cannons. More than 2,000 people have been detained. And like the Gezi Protests, the streets have again become a canvas for resistance and creativity.

One protester threw a copy of Orwell’s 1984 at riot police; another, seated cross-legged, defiantly read from Erdoğan’s own book, A Fairer World is Possible. A haunting image from a decade ago—a whirling dervish in a gas mask—was eerily recreated. Then there was the surreal moment when a young protester in Antalya, dressed as Pikachu, darted away from advancing riot police. Footage of the scene went viral, spawning AI-generated videos and memes, giving the fictional Pokémon an unexpected second life as a symbol of youthful defiance.

It would be tempting to draw a straight line between the current unrest and the spirit of Gezi, but the stakes have shifted. Then, the spark was urban planning. Now, it’s democracy itself. The arrest of İmamoğlu upends what many Turks assumed was a tacit social contract: that the ballot box, for all its imperfections, still mattered. But the sudden sidelining of the leading opposition figure ahead of critical national elections suggests otherwise.

İmamoğlu is no mere technocrat. Politically shrewd and media-savvy, he matches Erdoğan’s populist instincts and rhetorical agility. In 2019, he famously defeated the AKP’s mayoral candidate in Istanbul. When the government annulled the result and ordered a rerun, he returned with an even stronger mandate. His re-election in 2024—his third victory against the AKP in Istanbul—only cemented his status as Erdoğan’s chief political threat.

It’s not the first time Erdoğan has weaponized a crisis to tighten his grip. In 2013, following the Gezi Park protests, he cast demonstrators as vandals and foreign agents, bent on destabilizing the state. That same playbook—polarization, vilification, cultural warfare—is being dusted off. But this time, the audience is less receptive. The AKP’s popularity has declined amid soaring inflation and a deepening cost-of-living crisis. The old tricks no longer land.

Today’s demonstrators are younger. Many belong to Generation Z—Turks who have never known a leader other than Erdoğan. What began as spontaneous outrage over İmamoğlu’s arrest has morphed into something more profound: a youth-led movement to reclaim the rule of law. The protests have outlasted their initial spark, with new rallies regularly announced by the CHP and leftist parties, often supported by grassroots organizations.

The regime’s response has been predictably heavy-handed. Train stations were closed. Roads leading to protest zones were sealed. Taksim Square, once the heart of Turkish political dissent, was cordoned off. Nearly 2,000 people were arrested, including 301 university students, all of whom have since been released. Journalists and photographers—crucial witnesses to the unfolding story—have been specifically targeted. A Swedish journalist was detained. BBC’s Mark Lowen was deported.

Which raises the question: what future, if any, remains for Turkish democracy?

İmamoğlu’s legal fate is uncertain. With a judiciary widely seen as compromised, few expect a fair trial. The courts, packed with Erdoğan loyalists, could just as easily serve as the final weapon to eliminate the president’s most popular opponent. The broader geopolitical context only reinforces Erdoğan’s impunity. President Donald Trump has cultivated a friendly rapport with Erdoğan. Turkey’s role in NATO and its position on the Ukraine conflict make the country an indispensable—if uncomfortable—ally. The European Union treads carefully, and neither Russia nor China is likely to raise human rights concerns.

Internationally isolated yet domestically emboldened, Erdoğan remains a master tactician. But his hold is no longer unshakable. The real pressure now lies within. The resolve of the protestors, the cohesion of opposition parties, and the tenacity of an increasingly embattled independent press will determine what comes next.

A decade ago, the Erdoğan government crushed Gezi with brute force. Today, the situation is different. The opposition controls six of Turkey’s largest cities. The ruling party’s legitimacy is eroding. Erdoğan may command parliament, the courts, the military, and most media outlets, but the energy on the streets suggests something else entirely.

Perhaps, in the end, it will not be institutions that bring the curtain down on Erdoğan’s long reign, but the people themselves. What they demand now is not just justice for İmamoğlu. It’s the return of democracy itself.