Let's look at public order from this perspective too

We are experiencing multiple decay and collapse in almost every area of the social structure and state institutions. Criminal gangs are roaming all over the country. Young people who have become drug addicts are attacking, beating, stabbing, and killing women and people old enough to be their grandparents on the streets for no reason. There are those who arm themselves and block roads. Every day, we receive news of child and women abuse, assault, extortion, robbery, clashes between drug gangs, and murders in numbers we cannot even count. In many of these incidents, the perpetrators are released under judicial control conditions.

They say there is no room left in prisons. Perhaps one of the areas where the most investment has been made in Turkey is prisons. Meanwhile, there is not a single factory built by the state in 22 years. It is constantly opening prisons. Due to the political preferences of those in charge of the country, the system has become one that constantly produces criminals.

Let's look at the issue through budget expenditures and statistics.

While there were 171 thousand police officers in 2003, this number was around 320 thousand at the beginning of 2024. (According to information on the General Directorate of Security website, the number of personnel was 336 thousand in February 2024. 95.3 percent are in security services, 4.7 percent are in auxiliary services...)

In 2002, Turkey's population was 66 million. At the end of 2023, it was 85 million... Population growth in this period was 29 percent. If we add the approximately 15 million refugees, the number of people who need to be served in terms of public order in Turkey has increased by about 50 percent during the AKP government period, reaching 100 million people. The increase in the number of police officers, at 87 percent, has been higher than the population to be served for public order.

According to the number of police officers per 100 thousand people in Europe, we are third with 568 police officers. The countries with more police than us per 100 thousand people are Serbia with 596 and Montenegro with 678... For every 100 thousand people, there are 212 police officers in England, 296 in the Netherlands, 307 in Germany, 399 in Italy, 421 in Bulgaria, and 520 in Greece. (EU Statistical Office 2021 data) In short, both our number of police officers and the technical means at their disposal are sufficient...

As for the number of gendarmerie... As of 2022, the number of Gendarmerie is 194 thousand 668. In terms of area of duty, it serves 93 percent of the surface area and 20 percent of the population. I cannot make a comparison because I cannot access the 2002 Gendarmerie number data and the number of gendarmerie in European countries. However, to give an idea, I can say this: For the 2024 budget, 305 billion 480 million liras were allocated to the General Directorate of Security and 189 billion 694 thousand to the Gendarmerie Command.

NATIONAL DEFENSE AND INTERNAL SECURITY BUDGETS

Now let's come to another piece of data... The AKP government must have assessed that the internal threat is greater than the external threat; while reducing the share of National Defense in the budget, it increased the share of internal security services.

The share of the Ministry of National Defense from the budget was 6.7 percent in 2002, before the AKP. It fell to 4.4 percent in 2022. In the meantime, let us remind you that our borders have turned into a revolving door.

In the same period, the budget for public order (General Directorate of Security, Gendarmerie, and Coast Guard Command) also increased from 3.9 percent to 5.4 percent.

PRISONS AND CAPACITY

Let's look at another piece of data...

Before the AKP government, the capacity of prisons was 71 thousand people, the number of detainees and convicts was 59 thousand, and the occupancy rate of prisons was 83 percent. There were 9 people in prison for every 10 thousand people.

According to the latest data released, the capacity of prisons is 295 thousand 268 people. The number of detainees and convicts is 356 thousand 865... There are 61 thousand 597 convicts and detainees above capacity. On the other hand, crimes requiring detention are increasing day by day. The occupancy rate in prisons has reached 120 percent. There are 3 people in prison for every thousand people.

Between 2003 and 2024, the population increased by 29 percent from 66 million to 85 million.

The number of police officers increased by 87 percent.

Prison capacity increased by 315 percent from 71 thousand to 295 thousand 268.

The number of people in prison increased by 505 percent from 59 thousand to 356 thousand 865.

In the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of convicts and detainees increased by 87 thousand people... The rate of committing crimes is rising every year. While interpreting this data, let's also draw attention to this: The murders reflected in the public eye, femicides, drug networks emerging from every corner, armed attacks that have become ordinary every day, extortion, property seizure, and assault incidents, the perpetrators of which are released under judicial control conditions, are not included in these statistics. On top of this, add the daily incidents of sexual harassment, crimes committed against children and women, extortion, assault, and robbery that are not reflected in the press and statistics and whose numbers we do not even know.

Also, let us state that there are those in prisons who have committed no crime but were convicted simply for criticizing the government, and even those who were arrested for crimes that do not even carry a prison sentence.

Despite the increase in the number of police officers and the increased public order expenditures in the budget, the AKP government cannot ensure public order. Increasing expenditures are being used to establish a more authoritarian regime. In many places, people trying to protect their olive groves, fields, and pastures to defend their most basic constitutional rights are faced with the butt of a gendarmerie rifle. Workers who use their democratic right to protest simply because they are unionized are subjected to harsh police intervention, contrary to the Constitution and laws. Those who organize demonstrations for democratic rights, women who gather to put an end to femicides, students, and workers are subjected to harsh intervention by the police and gendarmerie. There is almost no one left on the streets who is laughing, having fun, or greeting each other...

If you switch from a secular education system that will ensure a person's development and analytical thinking style to an education system that raises a religious and vengeful generation...

If you try to stifle art, artists, free thought, and humor...

If you use justice not as a mechanism for the rule of law and the protection of the most basic rights, but as a stick for your own government...

If you protect and look after drug barons, if you allow drug gangs to infest even primary schools...

If you spread bribery, corruption, poverty, and misery...

If you turn the young people you left uneducated and unskilled into the henchmen of criminal gangs...

If you fill the country with 15 million refugees, including terrorists and Afghan-origin American soldiers, and distribute the sustenance of your own citizens to them, you do not need to be a prophet to say that things will get worse.