There are two legal concepts that politics in Turkey might win to the international lexicon after the notorious “deep state.” The first is the “trustee” (“kayyum” in Turkish, also can be translated as “appointee”). In the Turkish practice of this actually old and established legal tool, it is a person appointed by the government to any type of body, either a company or a municipality. The earlier wave practice of the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) to appoint trustees in order to incapacitate its opponents took place after the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, which was followed by purges of public workers for having ties to Gülen Movement, and the confiscation of their properties and assets.1 The companies of those who were sued for being part of the Gülen movement were first appointed a trustee and then were transferred to Turkey Wealth Fund that was established after this coup attempt.2 The trustee mechanism was used as an instrument in political participation as well: the pro-Kurdish parties saw their elected nominees being replaced by trustees in many districts and municipalities.3 Foundations were also appointed trustees, including the organizations of religious minority groups.4 Trustees are normally appointed by courts in order to sustain the structure until it can return to be run according to its internal regulations. It is done to protect the shareholders, the constituents, aiming for benefit of the communal rather than the individual. It is now being used as a tool of anti-democratic dismantling and dispossession by the ruling regime.
So any type of organization, company, association, professional association that has internal regulations and elections can be subject to a hostile takeover through central command appointing a trustee (or, appointee). My Alma Mater, Bogazici University, is run by a trustee since Jan 4, 2021 when the President of Turkey appointed a trustee instead of appointing the nominee that was selected by the internal democratic structure of the university. While it is true that it is the president that appoints the rector, it has been the common practice that the president appoints the first or the second nominee that gather the most votes at the university senate. Using this means of appointing a trustee and presidential decrees, President Erdogan started to dismantle the democratic structures and regulations of universities. The students’ protests at Bogazici were met with police violence, intimidation and expulsion. The faculty ever since continues their symbolic daily protests on the main open field by standing with banners and turning their backs to the office of the Rector at lunch hour.
The second term is “seizure.” It is not particular to the political situation in Turkey. But the way it has been instrumentalized in order to punish dissent, opposition, either a well-known journalist like Can Dündar, or a businessperson or a politician, is part and parcel of the rising authoritarianism in Turkey. The government has opted to seize the assets of people it prosecuted, before the trial reached a conviction. The latest instance of this triad of judicial prosecution, political retribution (or liquidation), and financial dispossession (or incapacitation, in the case of many public workers) has been the Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19, 2025. He is detained for charges related to terrorism and corruption.5 The lawsuit on terrorism charges were not filed, because, the prosecutor said, the other lawsuit was already filed, implying there was already one lawsuit against him.6 More then hundred people were detained the same day, among them many are in charge of high positions at the municipality.
Imamoglu is the popular contender for Presidency in the upcoming election in three years (or earlier if a early election is called for). This should be enough the ruffle the feathers anywhere. But beside the fact that there is no indictment yet, the family company Imamoglu owns with his father, who established it years ago, was seized.7 And all of the houses on the triad are hit.
Widespread protests took place in Turkey after the Imamoglu, the Mayor of Istanbul is detained and then arrested.8 The day before his detention, his university diploma from more than 30 years ago was annulled by the Board of Management of the Istanbul University, along with those of 27 other people.9 Ekrem Imamoglu first became the Mayor of Istanbul in 2019 at the local elections, during which the Republican Party of Turkey (RPP) won the seat of big cities and important municipalities from the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP), a significant win that challenged the control of the ruling party over local governance and tipped the balance of power in big cities in favor of the opposition for the first time since the President of Turkey became the Mayor of Istanbul in 1994.
There are important differences between the current widespread protests and the Gezi Uprising. I present below some initial thoughts, focusing on the axes of composition, repertoire, and the general context of the protests.
The street protests that started on March 19 were spearheaded by university students. They resonated in many universities across the country after the students at the Istanbul University broke through the police line and started to march, whose videos circulated widely on social media. The day the Mayor of Istanbul was detained, the Governor of Istanbul declared a ban on demonstrations for 4 days,10 and access to social media platforms was restricted.11 It was the students’ persistence that defeated the demonstration ban of the Governor of Istanbul, and people went out into the streets despite similar bans in other cities as well. In the following days, the students organized marches, and in Istanbul they walked toward the Municipality Building at Sarachane. In Istanbul, students also held their own meetings with representatives from many universities. Along with students, many regular citizens marched on the streets in numerous neighborhoods and many cities across the country, even in conservative cities such as Yozgat and Kayseri. The other group that shaped the mobilization on the streets was the Republican People’s Party (RPP; in Turkish CHP). It has a new cadre of administration, and its current leader Ozgur Ozel came to that position in 2023 by replacing Kilicdaroglu’s 13 year-old leadership. The RPP leadership decided to camp at the Istanbul Municipality and protect it as a first defense against the possibility of the Erdogan government appointing a trustee as the Municipal of Istanbul. The RPP organized meetings in front of the building, called on all supporters and invited speakers every night. The initial strategy of RPP was to use public support to prevent the ruling regime from appointing a trustee mayor in place of the legal process of the local municipality choosing a deputy on its own.12 The daily marches and meetings continued regularly until the Eid Holiday, declared by the President Erdogan to be held for nine days, when the students left the cities to visit their parents.
About this episode of street mobilization (which we will see if it’s going to be followed by others), I would like to remark that while the motion of the protests was launched by the students, the leaders of the RPP opted for a stationary presence and gave more precedence to the rhetorical aspect of countering the detention of Imamoğlu by framing it as an assault on democracy, on the right to elect and be elected, which concerns all citizens of Türkiye. The leadership of the RPP is walking on a tight rope, ascending on the wave created by students and trying not to crush it, while staying within the conceived limits of parliamentary democracy and not appearing insurrectionary when calling people out to defend their democracy. This tension was visible at these RPP held meetings when supporters were listening to speeches (and music performances) on the podium, while the students who gathered at the outer skirts of the demonstration was facing the police lines who stopped them from walking to Taksim. The students wanted to go to Taksim Square, the historical square for demonstrations. The Governor of Istanbul closed down the subway stations around Taksim in preparation, a long-standing practice that repeats every May 1st, International Workers Day in particular. Taksim Square was also both the real and symbolic epicenter of the Gezi Uprising in 2013.
The police forces not only stopped the students from marching to Taksim Square, but also attacked those who gathered for the RPP demonstrations at Saraçhane, after the meetings ended while people were dispersing, many nights in a row. There are numerous videos showing police officers spraying tear gas and using plastic bullets from behind an already dispersing crowd. The students at universities also experienced police brutality, and unlawful closure of university gates, days on end. The police blocked exits to prevent students from joining others at city centers at many universities. Police forces entered the campus of the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) in Ankara at night, used tear gas, water cannons and plastic bullets, chased down and detained students. Many students reported physical violence, as well as sexual violence, during detention.13 In terms of the response of security forces and the bans on mobility and communication, things have only gotten worse compared with the period of Gezi twelve years ago. This time, most of the detained students were taken from their houses in early morning raids, suggesting the widespread and systematic use of surveillance and technologies such as facial recognition.
The call for a general consumer boycott on April 2 came from the students.14 But the RPP was already offering boycotting the products and services of pro-JDP companies as a viable strategy of support throughout their nightly vigil demonstrations. So, the repertoire of protests included targeted boycotts, school boycotts, and complete boycott of commercial activities on designated days, as well as street marches and large demonstrations. I would say that the protests have been more organized and target-oriented than those that took place in the early days of the Gezi Uprising, which developed more as a response to government repressions and media censorship.
When it comes to the constituency of the protesters, while there are similarities with the composition of the protesters of the Gezi Uprising, the student groups on the one hand and the core RPP supporters on the other are the main groups that color these protests. The discourses of the leadership and membership of the RPP, as the main opposition party with many members of parliament as well as local governments, shape the framing of the assault and the projection of a possible field of action for the larger public. Which of these groups will be more decisive in shaping the repertoire of resistance is one of the main questions I have. I also wonder about the capacities of the RPP to gather much wider support in fostering a popular resistance. In the last two local elections, the RPP nominees was supported by Kurdish residents in cities in the west of the country. So, only time will show if the leadership of the RPP will prefer to muster current contestation towards its goal of coming to power in the next election by replacing the JDP, or if it will it put its effort into becoming the sustaining wall in generalizing the struggle for democracy with many constituents. Given the fact that RPP is rooted in the legacy of being the founding party of the republic and still rhetorically feeding on that hegemonic position, it seems very unlikely to me that it can do both.
Endnotes:
1 “Purges in Turkey Following the 2016 Turkish Coup Attempt,” in Wikipedia, March 28, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Purges_in_Turkey_following_the_2016_Turkish_coup_attempt&oldid=1282738446.
2 “Koza İpek Grubu’nun hisseleri Varlık Fonu’na geçti,” Bianet – Bağımsız İletişim Ağı, August 20, 2024, https://bianet.org/haber/koza-ipek-grubunun-hisseleri-varlik-fonuna-gecti-298785. The government agency that preceeded Wealth Fund in this practice has been the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey, which was originally founded as a governmental agency concerned with matters of fund management and insurance in the Turkish banking system.
3 “Turkey: Crackdown on Kurdish Opposition | Human Rights Watch,” Human Rights Watch (blog), March 20, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/20/turkey-crackdown-kurdish-opposition.
4 “‘Patriarchate Led by an Appointed Trustee for 10 Years, Democratic Election Needs to Be Held,’” Bianet, July 4, 2019, https://bianet.org/haber/patriarchate-led-by-an-appointed-trustee-for-10-years-democratic-election-needs-to-be-held-210083.
5 Volga Kuşçuoğlu, “Explained: The Broader Context Behind Turkey’s Crackdown on İstanbul Mayor,” Bianet, March 20, 2025, https://bianet.org/haber/explained-the-broader-context-behind-turkeys-crackdown-on-istanbul-mayor-305645.
6 Cihan Tekin, “İmamoğlu ’Terör’den Serbest, ’Yolsuzluk’tan Tutuklandı,” Diken (blog), March 23, 2025, https://www.diken.com.tr/imamoglu-terorden-serbest-yolsuzluktan-tutuklandi/.
7 “İstanbul Mayor’s Construction Company Seized Amid Investigation,” Bianet, March 19, 2025, https://bianet.org/haber/istanbul-mayors-construction-company-seized-amid-investigation-305611.
8 Bia News Desk, “Istanbul Mayor Detained on Multiple Charges as He Prepared to Challenge Erdoğan for Presidency,” Bianet – Independent Communication Network (blog), March 19, 2025, https://bianet.org/haber/istanbul-mayor-detained-on-multiple-charges-as-he-prepared-to-challenge-erdogan-for-presidency-305565.
9 Bia News Desk, “Istanbul Mayor’s University Diploma Revoked, Blocking Potential Presidential Bid,” Bianet – Independent Communication Network (blog), March 18, 2025, https://bianet.org/haber/istanbul-mayor-s-university-diploma-revoked-blocking-potential-presidential-bid-305543.
10 “İstanbul’da 4 Gün Toplantı Ve Gösteriler Yasaklandı,” Bianet – Bağımsız İletişim Ağı, March 19, 2025, https://bianet.org/haber/istanbul-da-4-gun-toplanti-ve-gosteriler-yasaklandi-305558.
11 NetBlocks [@netblocks], “⚠️ Confirmed: Live Metrics Show #Turkey Has Restricted Access to Multiple Social Media Platforms Including X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok; the Incident Comes as Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and Dozens of Others Are Detained in Events Described by the Opposition as a ‘Coup’ Https://T.Co/5ldegqQCH3,” Tweet, Twitter, March 19, 2025, https://x.com/netblocks/status/1902230361968427206.
12 For a general overview on the trend of replacing elected officials with trustees, see (in Turkish): Gül Hür, “Seçilenler vs Atananlar: Türkiye’de Kayyum Belediyeciliği | Doğruluk Payı,” Doğruluk Payı, accessed April 3, 2025, https://www.dogrulukpayi.com/zaman-tuneli/secilenler-vs-atananlar-turkiye-de-kayyum-belediyeciligi.
13 İnsan Hakları Derneği, “Bilgi Notu: 19-26 Mart 2025 Tarihleri Arasında Yaşanan Hak İhlalleri – İnsan Hakları Derneği,” İnsan Hakları Derneği (blog), March 27, 2025, https://www.ihd.org.tr/sokaga-dur-iskenceye-yuru-denildi/.
14 “Üniversitelilerden 2 Nisan’da ‘Ekonomik Boykot’ Çağrısı,” Bianet – Bağımsız İletişim Ağı, April 1, 2025, https://bianet.org/haber/universitelilerden-2-nisan-da-ekonomik-boykot-cagrisi-306025.