In the final presidential debate, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s threat to jail his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, provoked widespread horror.
But in another nation — a key, longstanding U.S. ally — a different populist leader just followed through on his own threat, jailing his political opposition after a slow, inexorable authoritarian crackdown that has seen journalists imprisoned and media outlets shuttered.
As of Friday morning, 11 members of parliament, all members of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), have been arrested by Turkish authorities. But while the coup attempt against Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his majority party in July generated comprehensive, wall-to-wall coverage in Western media outlets, this crackdown has largely slipped by under the radar.
The last 24 hours in Turkey
Thursday’s arrests include the party’s leaders, Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas, who were arrested in Ankara and Diyarbakir. Shortly before being arrested, Demirtas tweeted that authorities were at his door to forcibly take him into custody:
Diyarbakırda evimde zorla gözaltına alınma kararı ile emniyet yetkilileri kapımdalar
— Selahattin Demirtaş (@hdpdemirtas) November 3, 2016
According to a release from the Turkish Prime Minister’s office, there are outstanding arrest warrants for two more MPs, who are currently abroad, and legal processes against two others are currently ongoing.
According to the Prime Minister’s office, the MPs were detained for failing to answer a summons for testimony in an ongoing terrorism propaganda case being built against them. Both leaders of the party vowed publicly in June that they would not cooperate with the probe.
Video has also emerged of the arrest of Sebahat Tuncel, co-chair of a different pro-Kurdish party (which has not managed to pass Turkey’s unusually high threshold for election to parliament), the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), at a rally in the predominantly Kurdish Diyarbakir. The video shows her surrounded by police, then lifted off her feet as she struggles. One of them covers her mouth to silence her.
PHOTO: The moment Sebahat Tuncel, co-chair of Kurdish Democratic Regions Party was detained by police in Diyarbakir. pic.twitter.com/ed1yVTK5ux
— Turkey Untold (@TurkeyUntold) November 4, 2016
The HDP also said that their party headquarters in the Turkish capital was raided, according to reporting by CNN.
Mere hours after the arrests, a car bomb in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir killed nine and injured more than 100, according to local media. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the bombing, though the Diyarbakir Governor’s office has laid the blame with the PKK, a Kurdish militant group officially designated as a terrorist group by the Turkish and U.S. governments.
This is only the latest in a series of attacks to hit Turkey over the last year and a half. Attacks have been carried out by both the PKK and by ISIS, which most recently was blamed for an August attack in Gaziantep, a critical staging ground for humanitarian work in Syria. The attack, at a wedding in a predominantly Kurdish section of the city, killed more than 50 people and wounded scores more.
And while bombings in major cities are the most likely to generate international interest, everyday violence in the southeast — marked by clashes between Kurdish militants and crackdowns by Turkish authorities — have claimed over 100 civilian lives, according to rights groups.
A few years ago, charismatic Kurdish leaders like Demirtas were viewed as Turkey’s best hope to end this cycle of violence, which was temporarily halted as part of a fragile peace process.
Now, these very elected envoys have been arrested by the Turkish state.
The last few months in Turkey
Turkey is a constitutional democracy, led by a president and a prime minister and ruled by a parliament. Normally, members of parliament have immunity — so how did Turkey get to this point?
For Turkey watchers, Thursday’s arrests have been on the horizon for months. In May, the country’s majority party passed a measure to strip more than 50 Kurdish lawmakers, including those arrested on Thursday, of their immunity. But these arrests are linked to more than the parliamentary motion — they’re also part of wider purges following a failed military coup attempt blamed on a different Turkish faction, which happened in July.
Following the failed coup, the government instituted a state of emergency — which, among other things, allows the government to suspend some human rights provisions, and for the government leaders to rule by decree and bypass parliament.
Using this state of emergency, the government has conducted brutal purges of the civil service and military, ultimately arresting or suspending thousands of civil servants, teachers, and judges, and more than one third of military leaders. The government argued that these purges were necessary to root out people linked with the Islamic cleric Fetullah Gulen, who lives in exile in Pennsylvania and whom the government blamed for leading the coup.
Over time, however, the reach of the purge has widened to include officials with Kurdish affiliations as well. Over 10,000 teachers have also been suspended for alleged sympathies to the PKK militant group. Twenty Kurdish media outlets, by Al-Monitor’s count, have been shuttered. Businesses — in total, worth billions — have been seized.
In September, two dozen Kurdish mayors — members of the HDP party — were forced out of office in the southeast and charged with ties to militants. They were replaced by government bureaucrats, in what the Kurdish political party called an “administrative coup.”
And in late October, authorities arrested the co-mayors of Diyarbakir, sparking protests.
The throttling of Turkish media has been a key component of the government’s campaign. Interestingly, this is another parallel to the current U.S. election — increased government power over the free press is another common musing of Donald Trump’s. In early October, the Committee to Protect Journalists took an unprecedented step and cited Trump as a threat to press freedom in the United States.
That reality is playing out in real time in Turkey. As more and more opposition papers are shuttered, only state-run agencies are left — making it increasingly difficult to get clear, critical news, or any news that counters the party line. Making the dissemination of information even more difficult, Turkey frequently blocks social media sites to stymie protests and in the aftermath of terrorist attacks — recently, cutting off internet access altogether to more than 6 million people in the southeast.
Thursday was no exception: while the arrests were carried out, access to the popular social media sites Twitter and Whatsapp were blocked through throttling — selectively slowing the sites until they were unusable.
What it all means
Years ago, the stated ambitions of Turkish President Erdogan were to steer his country, a long standing member of NATO, towards E.U. membership. Now, Turkey is seizing and shuttering media outlets, jailing journalists, and arresting political opposition and members of its largest minority.
This has far-reaching implications — not just for Turkey, but also for Europe, for Syria, and for the United States and the fight against ISIS.
The last time pro-Kurdish MPs were arrested, 22 years ago, it led to some of the worst violence in a period of turmoil. It’s a sobering look at what may be to come for the country — which is especially bad news given its key strategic location.
22 years ago Kurdish MPs were picked up from the parliament, imprisoned, their party shut down. https://t.co/Ic4PGLANXX
— Nigâr Hacızade (@nhacizade) November 3, 2016
Turkey has a long, crucial border with Syria. The Turkish military (the same military that recently lost one third of its leaders) is an important part of securing that border — which has, in the past, been a leaky sieve for ISIS fighters and arms.
That border is also where most of Turkey’s Kurdish minority resides — and thus the locus of most of the current violence and upheaval. That means that upheaval in Turkey is very bad news for security in the Middle East.
Adding another layer, Turkey is focusing their crackdown on the Kurds — who, on the other side of the border, have been some of the most successful fighters against ISIS and whom are a key U.S. ally.
These latest arrests come even as U.S.-backed Kurdish militant groups are preparing for an onslaught on Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold in Syria.
But while the European Union and the United States have expressed concerns over Turkey’s lately nationalist, authoritarian bent, Turkey’s strategic placement also gives the country leverage against its Western allies. The United States conducts its military operations in Syria from a Turkish military base, and for Europe, Turkey is a critical firewall against the onslaught of refugees — which Erdogan has threatened to use as a bargaining chip before.
That makes this latest crackdown, and the resulting attack, ominous for a number of reasons: the battle against ISIS in both Syria and Iraq, the continuing global refugee crisis, and basic liberties in Turkey.