It’s as if the youth drove their cars at the police!...

Following the arrest of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, 301 young people who participated in the protest demonstrations were arrested and sent to Silivri.

Some of the accusations leveled against these young people are as follows:

“Calling for constitutional rights... Chanting slogans even if they do not contain insults... participating in a rally or protest... Opposition to the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations...”

They also explained in their statements how they were taken into custody:

Are you looking for the one who was called over and detained while walking down the street, or the one who ended up in Silivri because they told the police not to hit someone they saw being beaten?!

Their midterms and exams have started; but they are in jail.

Universities are not lifting a finger to ensure that these young people do not suffer a loss of rights. Families cannot even get their study notes or glasses inside.

On top of that, wouldn't the prosecutor's office, in the indictment prepared for 139 people, the majority of whom are students, also demand a “political ban”?!

In the early days of the youth protests, Erdoğan, who met with educators at an iftar program, had said, “We are aware of the games of those whose eyes are clouded by greed, rent, and money,” and added, “With God's permission, we will not allow anyone to steal the dreams or darken the hopes of our youth, who are the guarantee of our tomorrow.”

It's a good thing they don't allow it!.. If they actually did allow it, who knows what else would happen...

ERDOĞAN WAS ALSO INVESTIGATED UNDER THAT SAME LAW

After what happened to Ekrem İmamoğlu, what Recep Tayyip Erdoğan experienced during his time as the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality was recalled.

It was remembered that he faced the same corruption accusations and investigations, but was not taken into custody or arrested for even a single day...

Likewise, when he was sentenced to 10 months in prison for “inciting the public to hatred and hostility” due to a poem he read in Siirt, he had his sentence postponed twice, then went to the Pınarhisar Prison of his own choosing with rallies and convoys, and stayed in prison for 4 months like a king...

Speaking of Pınarhisar; before surrendering to the prison, an investigation was launched against him for “opposition to the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations” due to the speech he gave there, which had the atmosphere of a rally. I wonder how that investigation concluded, was he sentenced to any penalty?!

SHOULDN'T THEY BE BEATEN WITH BATONS BEFORE TAYYİP BEY'S EYES?

Let's make this comparison through Erdoğan's own test with the police.

After Erdoğan founded the AKP, he began opening provincial branches. One of these was in Bursa. Let's quote exactly what happened there in the evening from the book titled “R. Tayyip Erdoğan: The Birth of a Leader”:

“The provincial opening had been completed with a beautiful rally. As the AK Party bus was slowly moving toward the provincial building, flowers and confetti were being showered onto the convoy from the houses, and Tayyip Bey was greeting the people who were showing him affection along the way with the smile he never let fade from his face.

Right in the middle of a story that could have started with ‘Everything was flowing with a fairy-tale beauty,’ just a little ahead of the bus, and moreover, right before Tayyip Bey's eyes, shouldn't riot police, who appeared from nowhere, start beating the public with batons, regardless of whether they were children, young, or old?

At a moment when everything was going so well, the scene suddenly became chaotic for no reason.

It was clear that the fact that the public welcomed and embraced a party founded just yesterday and its Chairman with such intense interest had sent the city's political notables, the holders of power, and the civil administrators, who bowed their heads as if to say ‘Ultimately, we are just servants of orders,’ into a crisis of jealousy, and they were putting the public through a gauntlet with the help of the riot police.”

What does Erdoğan do at this exact point?

He does this:

“He took the microphone in his hand and shouted, ‘I am addressing the Bursa police.’

Even though he tried to look calm, it was easy to understand from the tone of his voice how hard he was struggling to control his anger in the face of this unexpected attitude of the police. ‘I know you are doing this on orders; but you also know that obeying an unlawful order is a crime!..

I am warning you to put an end to this lawlessness!..

The police stopped their attacks. Tayyip Bey continued: ‘This is not a planned march. Whatever a show of affection made after a match is, this is of the same status. We will continue on our way, open the road.’

After his warning to the police, he addressed the deputies on the bus: ‘Please get off and walk in front of the bus.’”

A NOD AND A WINK: “DRIVE YOUR CARS”

A similar incident occurred while traveling from Elazığ to Malatya before the 2002 elections. Let's listen to the incident, which is also in the same book, from the mouth of M. Şafi Öztekin, one of the names close to Erdoğan:

“We were about to enter Malatya. I was escorting the bus in my own car. The convoy behind me was quite long. We saw the police at the entrance of the city; they had blocked the road by linking arms and forming a barricade.

I immediately got out of the car and went to their commander with İbrahim. He was saying that another party's rally in the city had just ended, that they might not have fully dispersed yet, and that they had stopped us by taking into account the possibility of any conflict.

We said that the previous rally had long since dispersed, and besides, since our convoy was moving very slowly, a lot of time would pass before we reached the square, but it was in vain; the police were determined not to be convinced. In desperation, I looked at Mücahit Bey; he was watching us from the front of the bus with Tayyip Bey. With a nod and a wink, he said, ‘Get in your cars and drive.’ We ran, got into our vehicles, and drove straight at the police without letting up on the gas. They had to open the road, even if they didn't want to.”

And the commentary made after these lines?

“Whether it was at provincial openings or during the November 3 election campaigns, encountering all kinds of pressure, obstruction, and provocation attempts staged by the government of the day through the police had become almost an ordinary and daily occurrence. The risk of conflict increased in situations where the police blindly obeyed the orders given.” it is stated.

Continuing, it is stated that “when the police acted on their own initiative, which was not very often, any problem was resolved more easily,” and how a similar problem encountered at the opening of the Ağrı Provincial Headquarters building was solved is recounted by Abdülkadir Aksu, an AKP member who had served as a district governor, police chief, governor, Deputy Director General of Security, and finally Minister of Interior since the 1970s, as follows:

“The Police Chief had imposed a meeting ban, saying, ‘This opening ceremony has become very crowded, it has even turned into a rally. Yet you did not apply for a rally.’

The Chief was not in his place. Anyway, I found him shortly after. ‘My son, who taught you these things, from which legislation did you derive these objections?’ I said, and explained the situation in a language he would understand: ‘First of all, do we have any written or verbal rally call as a party? No. We came here for our provincial opening. Whoever comes, we will hold our ceremony with them. 10 people can come, or 10 thousand people can come. Are we going to say to our people who came on their own, ‘You have become too crowded, our police chief is angry, don't come’? The Chief couldn't find anything to say. It's not like he was going to teach me security measures and meeting legislation, right? In the end, he didn't bother us any further, saying, ‘Go ahead, hold your opening.’”

On this occasion; while celebrating the April 10 Police Day of the Turkish police, who are loyal to Atatürk, the Republic, and the nation, and respectful of the Constitution and the laws, let us ask this:

Is the reason why the tomorrows of our youth, whose past and present are both being stolen, are also being stolen, the fact that they are not a vengeful generation despite all the discord, and that Atatürk entrusted the Republic, his greatest work, to them?!

Müyesser YILDIZ

April 9, 2025