The efficiency of Turkey’s measures against the coronavirus remains questionable, but they have clearly become a new government tool to fuel political tensions and polarization. Ankara has banned opposition protests and other politically inconvenient events while the ruling party has no trouble mustering crowds to promote its own agenda.
On Aug. 30, the government banned celebrations of Victory Day, marking Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s decisive defeat of invading Greek forces in 1922 before his proclamation of the secular Turkish republic the following year. Heavy-handed police greeted those who took to streets in defiance of the ban. A parliament member from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) said he was kicked by the security forces. Police sealed off streets leading to Ataturk’s mausoleum in Ankara. The only group allowed to the mausoleum were supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who, flouting the solemn atmosphere of the edifice, chanted slogans in support of the president as he laid a wreath at Ataturk’s tomb.
