On June 5, Turkish authorities arrested two high school students for spray painting a kettle on the wall of a house in Istanbul. Next to the kettle they wrote, “There is a message coming from the kettle.” The reason for their arrest was reported as creating propaganda for terror organizations. Next to and beneath the kettle were acronyms for banned organizations. The owner of the house, rather than filing a complaint against the young men, came to their defense, explaining, “They only drew the kettle image. The names of organizations were already there.”

The kettle has become a political symbol thanks to Selahattin Demirtas, the imprisoned former chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) also known as the “Kurdish Obama.” Demirtas, who was arrested in November 2016, had in September 2017 allowed his attorney to send tweets from his Twitter account. After the tweets, guards thoroughly searched his space to figure out how he was able to tweet. Demirtas had to publicly state through Twitter that he was not actually typing and sending the messages. “Naturally they could not find any tweets in the rooms,” he joked. “There was a tea kettle in the room, but they concluded it is not able to send tweets.”

The popularity of the unassuming kettle took off in Turkish politics in early May. At that time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had accidentally provided the opposition with the resonating motto “TAMAM” (Enough), signifying how some might feel toward him. Each opposition figure stepped forward to join the Enough movement, but Demirtas, due to his incarceration, lagged behind in joining them. He eventually tweeted, “There was a complication with the kettle, that is why I am late. TAMAM.” In some 40 days, his message was retweeted in excess of 23,000 times and received 92,000 likes. In the meantime, kettle images began appearing in public, symbolizing the hope of an imprisoned politician. Demirtas’ kettle is now one of the strongest images on Turkey's political scene and surprisingly pleasant.

The HDP and Demirtas deserve praise for how they have handled legal and situational challenges in the run-up to presidential and legislative elections scheduled for June 24. The party published a study documenting attacks and arrests on party members and property from April 18 to June 10. They tallied 57 attacks on HDP campaigners, offices, cars and buses, and 208 members detained. Prior to that, hundreds of HDP members, including dozens of elected municipal leaders and lawmakers were arrested. The government filled the vacant municipal posts with its own people.