Turkey arrests prominent talent agent over 2013 Gezi protests
Ayse Barim’s arrest reflects a broader campaign to silence dissent, government critics say.
ANKARA — More than a decade after the Gezi protests, Turkish authorities arrested the country’s most prominent talent agent, Ayse Barim, over her involvement.
An Istanbul court ordered her late Monday arrest and charged her with attempting to overthrow the government, citing her involvement in the 2013 nationwide Gezi protests, which had started as an environmental demonstration in Istanbul and grew into weeks of nationwide protests against the government.
Prosecutors asked Barim whether she had mobilized the actors working with her talent agency to attend the protests, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu reported. Along with Barim, eight leading actors from her agency were also summoned by the police on Friday and asked whether they had been instructed by Barim to do so. Prosecutors launched a separate investigation into two of the actors, Halit Ergenc and Riza Kocaoglu, for perjury.
The actors were active during the Gezi Park protests, the first and only large-scale civil unrest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s more than two-decade rule. According to rights groups, the protests have since been used as a pretext to silence dissent in the country.
