Protests in Istanbul

Mar 28 2025 The Guardian

I’ve never seen such clampdowns in Istanbul. Turkey’s democracy is fighting for its life

Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel prize in literature

The jailing of President Erdoğan’s main political rival is the low point of a decade-long march towards autocracy – but the protesters aren’t done yet either.

In jailing İmamoğlu, Erdoğan doesn’t just sideline a more popular political rival – he also seeks to get his hands back on a wealth of resources he hasn’t been able to touch for seven years. Should he succeed, the next presidential election will feature only Erdoğan and his candidates’ faces plastered over the city’s walls and illuminated municipal billboards.

This is not a surprise for anybody who’s following Turkish politics closely. For the past decade, Turkey hasn’t been a real democracy – merely an electoral democracy, one where you can vote for your preferred candidate but have no freedom of speech or thought.