Turkey escalates crackdown on dissent six years after Gezi protests

Unzile Aksakoglu struggles to explain to her seven-year-old daughter why her father Yigit has spent four months in jail and may never leave, because of his alleged role in mass protests against Turkey’s government when she was just a year old.

After all, the people originally prosecuted over the 2013 protests - which began against the redevelopment of central Istanbul’s Gezi Park and grew into nationwide anti-government unrest - were acquitted.

A Turkish judge ruled in 2015 that the protesters were exercising the right of freedom of assembly in what turned out to be the biggest popular challenge to Tayyip Erdogan’s rule.

But in November, Yigit Aksakoglu was detained and is now facing trial with 15 other civil society figures, writers and actors. For a while Aksakoglu’s family hoped he would soon be released, but then on March 4, a 657-page indictment was released saying they had masterminded an attempt to overthrow Erdogan’s government.

“I say to her, ‘I promise I and your daddy’s friends will get him out. Don’t worry. This misunderstanding will end.’ But a part of me is really scared,” Unzile said.

Supporters of the detainees say the indictment contains no evidence and many bizarre accusations, and marks a new low for a country where 77,000 people already been jailed in a crackdown following a failed military coup in 2016.

The European Union said that by seeking life sentences, prosecutors were creating a climate of fear in Turkey, while the U.S. State Department has said Washington is gravely concerned.

The arrests are the latest step in a crackdown which Turkey says is a necessary response to security threats that the country faces and which has involved widespread purges in the armed forces, ministries and state organisations.