Whirling in the Tear Gas: Dervishes, Students and Hope Threaten Turkish Leader

The image was striking – a whirling dervish wearing a gas mask, arms spread out through the tear gas in apparent supplication, a wall of helmet-clad riot police behind him. 

The photo became such an iconic image of the protests rocking Turkey since mid-March that the photographer, Agence France-Presse journalist Yasin Akgul, received a knock on his door by police in Istanbul soon after it went viral.  

Afterward, he became one of more than 2,000 detained last month for allegedly participating in mass demonstrations across the country that have involved hundreds of thousands of protesters angry over the imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on corruption charges – he is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s top political rival. 

“Until now, it had mainly been reporters and opinion writers who were targeted – a photojournalist had never been jailed for doing his job,” he said in an interview with the French newswire. “I see that as a desire to make it impossible to cover current events in images. Other well-known photographers were arrested at the same time as me.” 

Akgul was released four days later, but the charges were not dropped. A few weeks later, prosecutors began the hastily arranged trials of those accused of participating in what are deemed “illegal” demonstrations. 

To date, about 189 people, including at least seven journalists, and scores of students are to be tried for attending unauthorized demonstrations and failing to obey police orders to disperse, carrying weapons or covering their faces to conceal their identity, and incitement to commit a crime – the latter charge is for posting about the protests on social media, Human Rights Watch wrote. Some of the charges carry prison sentences of up to five years. Evidence is lacking in most of the cases, the organization added, with the trials clearly politically motivated.  

Another 819 are currently facing prosecution in the near future.  

The crackdown comes as Erdoğan, in power for 22 years, is facing one of the biggest challenges to his government yet, even as analysts say he plans to extend his term in office. If he does, elections will have to be moved up from 2028 as scheduled under Turkish law. The president sees that as a problem: İmamoğlu tops Erdoğan in the polls.  

“Turkey is governed by a junta that is afraid of elections, afraid of its opponents and afraid of the nation,” said Özgür Özel, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the country’s main opposition. He has now been charged with “insulting” the Turkish president because of his statements on the arrest. 

The crackdown, the biggest since a years-long purge following an attempted coup in 2016, has taken many forms. 

It has included the throttling of the bandwidth on social media platforms and restrictions on social media and messaging apps, including ordering social media platforms to block protest-related content: The Information Technologies Authority has issued hundreds of blocking orders for the social media accounts of journalists, media organizations, civil society organizations, and human rights officials. 

On the streets, the mainly peaceful protesters have often faced water cannons, pepper spray, and physical violence.  

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities have cracked down on foreign journalists, too. The BBC reported that its correspondent, Mark Lowen, in Istanbul to cover the protests, was detained and later deported because he was deemed a “threat to public order.” Swedish journalist Joakim Medin of Dagens ETC is facing 12 years in prison for “insulting” the president and also for belonging to a terrorist organization after arriving to cover the demonstrations.  

In Turkey, 90 percent of local media is under government control, Reporters Without Borders noted. Here, most media outlets don’t feature any coverage of the demonstrations. Instead, they feature stories about police officers handing out candy to motorists, the Economist noted. 

Even the organizers of a “shopping boycott” targeting businesses that advertise in state-controlled media or support the president were arrested. 

Meanwhile, Erdoğan has painted the protesters as terrorists and vowed to bring the streets back under control. “Those who terrorize our streets and want to turn this country into a place of chaos have nowhere to go,” he said in late March. “The path they have taken is a dead end.”  

Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations warned that an even harsher crackdown could be coming.  

“If the Turkish president is able to sustain his power through the crisis his unbounded ego created, he will step up repression,” he wrote in Foreign Policy. “Yet he has not been able to intimidate (for now) the last and most important brake on his power: Turks, who despite (or perhaps because of) everything Erdoğan has done to undermine the rule of law, remain committed to this principle. It is possible that Erdoğan went too far when he sought to short-circuit İmamoğlu’s presidential challenge. He may never fully recover from the rage his narcissism has provoked.” 

Still, the turmoil is causing some dissent within the ruling party itself, Le Monde reported, with some party members resigning. At the same time, it’s bringing other groups into the protests that usually find little common ground, such as far-right nationalists and the Kurds, the Washington Post added.  

Regardless, the protests continue, in spite of the crackdown, as they have for more than a month. Some students say they were initially afraid of arrest, but not anymore. Instead, they see in İmamoğlu hope, a chance for change, and say it is worth it.  

“We are no longer afraid to speak out about the things that have become unbearable for us,” one protester at Istanbul University told Le Monde. “The authorities’ systematic repression will no longer stop us.” 

Students are also angry at the government because of the current economic situation, which has also cost Erdoğan and his AKP party support in elections over the past few years. Turkey has seen high inflation and unemployment since the pandemic.  

As a result, the young say they have no future in their country, especially as it has become highly authoritarian under Erdoğan.  

“I think growing up under just one regime makes us a generation looking for change, looking for proof we live in a democracy,” said Yezan Atesyan, a 20-year-old student at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in an interview with Reuters. “The idea of a power that lasts forever scares us.” 

“This feels like our last chance,” Atesyan added. “If we don’t succeed, many of us will have to leave Turkey.”