Turkey’s largest opposition party is organizing rallies, urging boycotts of pro-government businesses and standing by its presidential candidate — even if he will have to campaign from jail. At universities, students have formed councils to direct protests and spread the word, sharing tips for dealing with the riot police and tear gas. Their efforts — … Read more
Over the last two decades, countries like Turkey, Hungary, Venezuela and India gave the world a lesson on how democracy can erode into “competitive authoritarianism” — a system in which elections are still meaningful, but leaders manipulate the rules to their own benefit, while systematically violating civil liberties. Now, we are starting to find out … Read more
Istanbul: Turkey on Thursday stepped up a crackdown on media coverage of mass protests since the arrest of Istanbul’s popular mayor, deporting a BBC journalist and imposing a 10-day broadcast ban on an opposition TV channel. The moves came after police detained 11 Turkish journalists, including an AFP photographer, who were covering the worst street … Read more
The BBC said on Thursday that Turkey had deported a correspondent who was covering the antigovernment protests in the country, after he was detained and labeled “a threat to public order.” The broadcaster said in a statement that Mark Lowen, who had been in the country for several days, was taken from his hotel on … Read more
One week after the Turkish government arrested the mayor of Istanbul, who is the top rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the political opposition on Wednesday pressed new tactics to fight what it called an assault on the country’s democracy. The arrest has set off nightly demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands of antigovernment … Read more
Turkey has been plunged into a political crisis after the authorities arrested Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and the top rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on accusations of corruption and supporting terrorism. The biggest protests in more than a decade have erupted across the country, with Mr. Imamoglu ousted from his position and … Read more
A Turkish court on Sunday jailed the mayor of Istanbul pending trial on corruption charges, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency, sidelining a potential contender in Turkey’s next presidential election and the top rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested at his home on Wednesday, four days before he … Read more
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan entered this year facing a knot of political problems with little precedent in his two decades at the summit of power in Turkey. Voters were angry about persistently high inflation. His political party’s popularity had sunk. And his opponents had coalesced around the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, who made it … Read more
President Trump’s intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Mr. Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power. “Honest to god, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Steven Levitsky, … Read more
The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, one of Turkey’s most prominent opposition politicians, was arrested on Wednesday morning on charges related to corruption and terrorism, the city’s prosecutor’s office said. A large group of police officers arrived at Mr. Imamoglu’s house and took him away, and a number of his aides were also detained. Prosecutors … Read more