Behind Turkey’s latest crackdown

A fresh wave of arrests and investigations is sweeping through Turkey, ensnaring opposition figures, journalists, and even actors and their agent.

I consider myself a close follower of the news, yet even I am struggling to keep track of who’s been detained or arrested in Turkey over the past few months. The regime appears to have entered one of its episodic crackdowns, targeting opposition figures en masse. This pattern first emerged in late 2009 and persisted for years through sham trials—Ergenekon and Sledgehammer—built on fabricated evidence and orchestrated by Fethullah Gülen’s network within the security forces and judiciary. A second offensive followed the Gezi protests in 2013, a third after the botched coup in 2016, this time aimed at Gülenists (now labeled as the FETÖ terror organization).

But don’t mistake the periods between these offensives for times of democracy, where free speech and human rights were respected. You wouldn’t. As readers of this publication, you know too well the nature of authoritarian regimes. The opposition—particularly Kurdish politicians and journalists—has always borne the brunt of repression: …