Shownotes Transcript
Hi, this is Stephen. Today we have a bonus episode in which I have a conversation with Melissa, a student from Turkey. We talk about the large protests that have been continuing in Turkey since the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, on the 19th of March.
This podcast is free, but it is supported by our amazing Send7 supporters who have access to the transcripts of all episodes, including this one, vocabulary lists, and weekly worksheets and world news quiz. You can become a supporter at send7.org. We give 10% of our profit to highly effective charities. Here is my conversation with Melissa. I'm joined by Melissa from Turkey. Melissa, thank you for joining me.
Hello, thank you for hosting me. It really means a lot that I can speak about what's going on in Tunisia right now. Well, thank you for being here. Can you just tell us, first of all, why have these protests started?
Of course. And as I do that, I would like to also give you a little bit of context from before as well to see what actually led here as I go. So this protest started after Ekrem Imamoglu, the elected mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, got arrested rather roughly on March 19th.
Prior to March 19th, the previous evening, so on 18th, his diploma got annulled. And bear in mind, he has graduated 31 years ago. And this man has not been in politics just for a year or a couple of years. Ever since 2019, he has been the elected mayor of Istanbul municipality. And before that, he was also the elected mayor
He was the mayor of a smaller region in Istanbul called Gelik Yüzey.
Now, once they annulled his diploma, which legality and structure of the legal part of it is really questioned by the public. We can get to that in a bit. And then within eight, nine hours, they arrested him with a dawn operation on 19th of March. Yeah. So let's talk about that. It's been three weeks now since immigration.
Imamoglu has been arrested. Just for context, we are talking on the 10th of April. What actual reasoning did the government give for arresting Imamoglu? So there are two main reasonings that they put out forward. The first one is that he committed bribery and financial fraud.
within the municipality and its branches and subsidiaries. And the other one is actually a terror investigation, which is really out of pocket by public opinion. And there are two main steps regarding this. If Imamoglu was to be convicted and jailed by both of these accusations, then the government would have been able to appoint a municipality mayor to Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
How things eventually played out is Ekrem Imamoglu actually was found innocent on the terror investigation and now he's only being judged due to the bribery and financial fraud investigation. Okay, that's the reasoning that the government has given but I suppose
the protesters and opposition parties and Imamoglu's party say that the real reason for his arrest is to stop him from running to be president. Is that right? Yes, that is very much right. And I want to add something here. The protests, why they started so, you know, on a big spread and on a big scale is not because of one politician.
There's like a very big history and backstory and I would like to sum it up as this: Right now we have a lot of journalists in jail or under custody, even before these started. We have political party leaders that are elected in jail and their indictments haven't been even written yet or if they have been written, it's really recently that that happened.
It's actually very ironic, in my opinion. Right now, aside from the smaller region mayors in prison, we also have two big and important figures that are both political party presidents. One of them is the former president of the Kurdish party, and the other one is the president of the Nationalist party. We have like
I want to give some more info here. We have MHP, which is also known as the Nationalist Party, but they're right now collaborating with Erdogan. And we have Zafar Partisi, so that would be Victory Party. They're also known to be a very like nationalist party. And now their president is in jail. The Kurdish party's president is in jail. And now we have these smaller region municipal mayors in jail.
So we actually have this one main prison in Silivri, which is a region in Istanbul, and that's where all the political victims are. These protests have been going on since the day that Imamoglu was arrested.
And they've been really huge. I've seen, I think in Istanbul, there was even one where possibly more than a million or up to two million people actually attended. And I suppose that the protesters are demanding the release of Imamoglu. Are there other things that the protesters are demanding as well, or is it mainly that?
Of course there are other things, and again, it's really sad that we have these political representatives in prison, but the main thing the public saw with this arrest and is actually demanding justice for is their simple human constitutional rights. It's not just about Ekrem Imamoglu or other representatives in prison, because the public, especially the opposing parties,
part of the public says if he did commit a crime okay investigate it but right now nobody and this is public opinion not a personal one but nobody right now has faith in the judicial system in turkey which is such a big issue with this arrest and diploma cancellation
especially students my age, saw that I can work and I can rightfully get a diploma. I can create generational wealth, but they can all be taken away from my hands just because I applied to the wrong position or I became a rival to the wrong guy. And that's actually what people are mainly fighting for. Imamoglu is the face of it.
But the main idea is we want our rights. We don't want to fear that what if we lose our diploma because I want to run for parliament or presidency. These are constitutional rights. There are simple requirements. And if you fulfill them, you can apply. I can apply to be a presidential candidate once I get my diploma. But it shouldn't cause problems.
trauma and imprisonment for this. Let's talk about the protests themselves. How have they been? Has there been a big police presence? Have there been a lot of arrests? What have the actual protests themselves been like?
So the protest initially started as just the people going up to, you know, like the municipality headquarters and standing there chanting some protest chants asking for justice. And it started with, I think, 100k people and eventually over
quickly, very few days, it grew up until one million people and then there was also like a formal rally held by the opposing party and there they claimed that 2.2 million people attended it. Now the protests are great, they're mostly led by young people and students, but the very sad thing here is
Yes, there has been police presence, very extremely so, which that part is normal. But the sad part is that there have been a great amount of police brutality and abuse of power. And unfortunately, this is really underrepresented or misrepresented in both international and national media. And I want to add something here that I think is very important.
When I gave you the timeline that day and all the diploma on March 18th, the arrest that happened on March 19th happened at 7.36 a.m. precisely. And so people were just waking up. They were just starting to leave their houses. And what the Turkish people woke up to that day was...
limited transportation and limited communication. Because as the arrest was taking place, the government went for a narrowing in the internet bandwidth so people couldn't access social media. They barricaded the roads in Istanbul. And Istanbul has around 20 million people, may I tell you. So blocking the roads is a very big deal.
And then they also suspended metro services and transit hubs, aside from one or two lines. So this is what the public woke up to. It took them some time to hear about the arrest. And during that first week of the protests, that was during Ramadan, right? So do you think that had any extra effect on the protests?
Well, I mean, in a way, yes. I would say Ramadan for context is when Muslim people don't eat and drink water or consume anything for an entire day from dawn time until sunset. And in the evening, they break their fast eating food. So this happened while people were fasting. So students there, people there, also the police there, they...
probably like a good amount of them were fasting and they were still there. And what this affected was actually like, I think most the, it was mostly visible in perception of how these protests went because the police was using force on students there with tear gas, water cannons and everything. And then the protesters, the students, the young people, they were bringing them snacks, water, flowers, pastries, so they can break their fasts.
So I think Ramadan in that sense was really good to see like really who is doing what. But also, you know, Turkey by government representation always presents itself as like a Muslim country. And by the entire context of Ramadan, like this amount of abuse of power and violence should not have been taking place during Ramadan. Yeah.
I've heard that the national media is not really covering the protests. Is that how it is? Is it blocked? Is it not spoken about in Turkish national media? I've also heard that social media has largely been blocked as well. I'm not sure if that's all the time or just at certain times. Could you talk a bit about that?
Of course. So let me start off with social media since it's a shorter reply. The social media bandwidth narrowing happened on the day after the arrest and it went on for a couple of days. Since I'm not in Turkey right now, I am not 100% certain of the situation right now. I can, however, say it eventually got better. People started using VPNs and they had better access. But yes, there was a block and narrowing on the social media access.
And now coming on to the national news channels, we have a bunch of like generic news channels and one that is very largely known.
on most of these channels, yes, these protests or the arrests weren't spoken about. These protests were not mentioned that much at all. And when the arrest of Imamoglu was spoken about, it was very clearly spoken from, not an objective journalism perception point of view, but rather it was spoken from like an extra accusing and very, like I would personally say a
a very invasive way and language. They were, for example, like they were taking an interview done with Imamoglu's father and they were saying like, oh, he couldn't defend his son or they would take like a snippet from a protest of
like when the mayor's wife Dilek Imamoglu is giving a speech and you know she's like loud and trying to put on a smile they put this on the news and say she is the happiest woman in the world now that um
his husband is in jail. Like these are really dirty. These are really invasive. This shouldn't be done in a democratic country. We have three main channels that are known to be more objective and more opposition sided. And one of these channels, Soju TV, actually got a punishment from the radio and television channel.
council of Turkey, let's say. And the punishment was like darkening their screens for 10 days. So they weren't going to be able to
do any shows or programs or news for 10 days and Turkey, like the history of Turkey, I don't think we ever saw something like this during normal times where there are no coups happening or anything. So this is like a really extreme measure. From that channel, they had their broadcasting basically cut off for 10 days at
because they were showing stuff about the protests is that right yeah yeah and they were hosting opposing journalists to talk about the matter amazing
Somehow, after being arrested, Imamoglu managed to write an article which was published by the New York Times. And I recommend to everybody to read it if they can. One thing that he wrote in that article was a criticism of governments around the world. And I'm going to read a little excerpt of that. So it's this.
"Their silence is deafening. Washington merely expressed concerns regarding recent arrests and protests in Turkey. With few exceptions, European leaders have failed to offer a strong response." Do you think that this is a sentiment that protesters feel as well? Do they feel betrayed by democracies around the world? I would mostly answer yes to this.
There are a bunch of sides to this. Now, starting with USA, when these things first started playing out, our foreign affairs minister was having some talks there with Mr. Rubio, I believe. And when he came back and was asked about what was spoken about what's happening in Turkey, it took us a really good time to get a solid answer about it. And then when we got the answer, it was that, oh yeah, they expressed...
the USA party expressed concerns, but they also said they're not going to intervene with Turkey's internal affairs, which
is a little ironic in this case, I believe. There is also, this is again public opinion, the dates have been released where the governmental officials have been in contact with officials from USA, again in government level, and right now in public actually there is this perception that
Before the arrest took place, Turkey had a discussion with USA and mainly Trump and then went on board with arresting Imamoglu. Now this is a very big concern especially for young people but also given historic repetitions when USA gets involved it's really scary for us Turks. And aside from that in Europe, I must say personally I'm really surprised because I
personally think that we got more support than I believed we would. But this doesn't mean that the support we got is actually enough on an objective level. There were a good number of government workers or officials or mayors from Italy that really supported him. They actually recently hung a banner flag with Imamoglu's face on Bologna municipality, I believe.
Italian mayors have been really involved and have been really supportive of Ekdemir Mamoglu and the EU Council also paid a visit to Turkey. And I think that was really nice as well. However, all of these, while all of these have been taking place, still we are lacking information.
formal claims and statements and sentences from politicians and heads of states and governments, not just in Europe, but also globally. And I find this a little ironic given how important Turkey is, not just
because of its geopolitical position. But also, Turkey has been like a very strong economy for what it's going through and what it has gone through, and also has really been a great help in military, especially for NATO, for example. Here is another quote from that New York Times article. These are the words of Imamoglu, again, quote,
End quote.
Is this how protesters and opposition groups feel right now? Do people feel like democracy itself in Turkey is slipping away? Yes. Yes, they do. Yes, we all do. Unfortunately, this is the case. And we are trying our best to actually create a voice, not just in Turkey, but also abroad with protests, posts.
boycotts and everything but unfortunately it is the case and again this is not just about one person, one party, one face, this is about exactly democracy and democratic rights. I want to add a couple of informations here. Recently, just yesterday actually, they arrested two very prominent and well-known journalists upon completing a program about what's happening
And previously to that, for weeks, we've been fighting for our peers in Turkey. 301 students got arrested simply for using their constitutional rights, which is protesting. And may I remind you, a peaceful protest.
In light of everything that's happening, we also went for an economic boycott in Turkey. The opposing party's leader announced a list of groups, holdings and brands that are very closely affiliated with government and doing high pricings and overall being a little bit corrupt and sided.
Once the economic boycott started, while we actually saw a good amount of change in consumption and its effects and how much it scared the government officials, we also saw celebrities getting arrested for posting an Instagram story about supporting an economic boycott.
Wow. Thank you very much, Melissa. What would you like to leave our listeners with? Would you like to point them towards you somewhere? Social media, something like that? Yes, of course. I have my Instagram account at edu.melissa, but perhaps you can put that on the screen. Yeah. Do you want to spell that out? Oh, yeah. Go on then.
So they can follow me on my Instagram account, which is spelled as E-E-C-E dot Melissa with one S.
And I'm also posting there almost daily about what's happening in Turkey. And I try to be as objective as I can. And last thing I would like to say before I go, thank you so much for hosting me and giving me an opportunity to speak and be a voice for my friends. One of my friends actually is right now in jail until April 18th. And in Turkey right now, many students are in this situation. Either they are arrested or their friends are arrested.
We are going through a very hard time and I hope that, you know, globally more people can actually start hearing about us and not just turn a blind eye to us. Thank you for giving this opportunity. Well, I'm happy to be able to host you on Send7, Simple English News Daily. Melissa, thank you very much for joining me. Thank you.