A protester wearing a gas mask and a whirling dervish robe spins peacefully in front of a line of Turkish riot police as pepper spray shoots directly into his face. The image, which went viral on social media last night, has become a potent symbol of the intensifying unrest in Turkey – where mass demonstrations are gaining momentum but are being met with brute force and repression.
Scenes of violence and police brutality erupted on the fifth night of mass protests in Turkey, hours after Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was politically persecuted with corruption charges while also being declared the opposition CHP’s presidential candidate for the 2028 elections with a record 15 million votes.
Although the demonstrations have been largely peaceful since they began on Wednesday, Sunday night marked a dramatic shift as police escalated their use of force in response to the growing number and momentum of the protests, inflaming tensions and increasing the number of arrests and detentions.
In several videos that have surfaced on social media, protesters can be seen peacefully chanting or waving Turkish flags in front of a line of riot police before being abruptly attacked by water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray and police batons.
A student protester who spoke to Kathimerini English Edition on condition of anonymity said that in Saraçhane, where tens of thousands gathered to demonstrate on Sunday night, Turkish police indiscriminately used excessive force in a way that she found “shocking and unprecedented.”
“We fell down trying to escape, we were severely punched and kicked in the face by the police, and we had to take shelter in a nearby hotel and hide for our lives,” she says, adding that the vast majority of protesters were “peaceful and actually begging for the brutality to stop.”
Like many other students and protesters, she says she now fears that “deliberate provocations will be staged and used to justify the government’s escalation of violence and repression.”
Turkey’s interior minister said 1,133 people had been arrested since the protests began on March 19, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated a stern warning that street protests would not be tolerated and accused many of the participants of supporting terrorism.
Among those arrested is 20-year-old Berkay Gezgin, a student known for coining the campaign slogan for Imamoglu’s 2019 campaign, “Everything will be alright,” whose detention has led to a strong outcry and backlash on social media, becoming another rallying point for protesters.
The state crackdown has also targeted various members of the press, particularly photojournalists documenting the protests and police brutality, as at least 9 journalists were detained in Istanbul and Izmir over the weekend. They include AFP photojournalist Yasin Akgül and photographers Bülent Kılıç, Kurtuluş Arı and Murat Kocabaş, all of whom were arrested in police raids on their homes in the early hours of the morning.
Sudden home raids and arrests have also been used against scores of protesters in various cities across Turkey, with some analysts suggesting that the Interior Ministry’s official figures are still lagging behind.
Sibel Ayvaz, a Turkish academic, told Kathimerini English Edition that Turkish police broke into her family’s home in Izmir early this morning and took away two relatives simply for participating in the protests.
“My nieces are simple, unorganized and peaceful protesters,” she says. “This morning’s incident tells me that there are probably a lot of police operations going on, targeting a huge number of people.”