“Neither masks nor vaccine” and “Turks are not guinea pigs,” shouted thousands of people who gathered in Istanbul on Saturday in the largest anti-vaccine demonstration since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Turkey. 

The man of the hour was arch-conservative columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak, who masterminded and led the so-called “Great Awakening Rally.” In a fiery speech he urged the government to close down the World Health Organization's office in Ankara. A man wearing a Fidel Castro-style cap waved a banner reading, “World Health Organization, get the hell out of my country.”

Dilipak, a media-savvy figure who delights in making headlines with his provocative statements and global conspiracy theories, said that Turks would not be “guinea pigs” for dubious concoctions designed to change human DNA. 

“We are here to stand against global conspiracies. We are here to stand against Bill Gates,” he shouted to a cheering crowd. Some of the demonstrators carried banners directed at Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft who became the top target for various conspiracy theories. “No chips, no masks,” said one banner, alluding to the baseless claim that Microsoft used vaccines to implant trackable microchips into people.