02 April 2025
Judicial Harassment in Turkey
The arrest of the opposition’s presidential frontrunner Ekrem İmamoğlu marks a historic turning point for Turkey. It is emblematic of Turkey’s shift from "competitive authoritarianism" towards "full authoritarianism" or a weak form of fascism, demanding immediate and preventive intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. Most importantly, retrospective assessments of the recent events in Turkey are insufficient at this point. It is crucial to invoke Article 18 and the “chilling effect” doctrine before irreparable political damage occurs. Continue reading >>
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28 March 2025
The Arrest of Istanbul’s Mayor is Textbook Lawfare
On March 19, 2025, police arrested Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on corruption and terrorism charges. Four days later, on March 23, a judge ordered him to prison pending trial. İmamoğlu is not only the mayor of Istanbul, a position he has held by repeatedly defeating Erdoğan-backed candidates, but also widely regarded as the opposition’s most prominent and promising candidate to challenge Erdoğan in a presidential election. That is why the lawfare waged against him, culminating in his pre-trial detention, is broadly viewed as an attempt by the ruling party to eliminate Turkey’s rising opposition and further consolidate its one-party rule. Continue reading >>
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05 January 2023
Interfering with Free Speech and the Fate of Turkey
On 21 April 1998, the then mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was sentenced to one year (subsequently reduced to ten months) in prison and a hefty fine by the State Security Court of Diyarbakır for “incitement to hatred and hostility on grounds of religious discrimination”. His criminal act was that of reading two provocative verses from the poem “Divine Army” by Cevat Örnek (“the minarets are bayonets, the domes are helmets / mosques are our barracks, the faithful our soldiers”) during a rally of the Islamist Welfare Party (of “Strasbourg fame”) in 1997. Twenty-five years after the aforementioned rally, Turkey experienced a free speech case involving another conservative-leaning political figure on the rise: on 14 December 2022, İstanbul’s mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was sentenced by İstanbul’s 7th Criminal Court of First Instance to a term of imprisonment of two years, seven months and fifteen days for criminal defamation. Continue reading >>
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