Security forces in the Turkish capital carried out sweeping raids on Tuesday ahead of next month’s NATO summit and detained more than 200 people with suspected links to extremist groups, including the Islamic State group, officials said. The operation, ordered through prosecutors and executed by police and gendarmerie, put the machinery of state security on display in Ankara just as the government prepares to lock down the city for visiting alliance leaders.
Who Gets Hit First
Early on Tuesday, Turkish prosecutors issued detention orders for 241 suspects, and 209 of them were subsequently taken into custody in police and gendarmerie raids around Ankara, according to a statement from the chief prosecutor’s office. The raids were still underway later Tuesday to take in the rest of the suspects. Among those detained were 56 alleged Islamic State militants and 35 members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front, a far-left group known for armed attacks and assassinations in Turkey, the statement said.
Some media outlets reported that some of those detained were politicians or activists, leading to allegations of arbitrary detentions. Birgun, an independent left-leaning newspaper, and other media reported that a politician, an LGBTQ activist and at least three lawyers allegedly close to left-wing groups were also among the detained. That reporting sharpened concerns that security claims can become a convenient cover for silencing critics and clearing the streets before the summit spectacle begins.
What They Call Security
Turkey is planning strict security measures for the summit, including banning demonstrations and restricting access to roads leading to airports, as well as sealing off areas around the summit venue and hotels hosting delegations. In other words, the city is being reorganized around the needs of the summit and the people who attend it, while ordinary residents face bans, barriers and controlled movement.
U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to join other leaders of the 32-member alliance in Ankara for the July 7-8 summit. The gathering will bring the alliance’s top political and military figures into the Turkish capital under heavy protection, with the public kept at a distance by design.
The State’s Favorite Tool
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has prioritized security and authorities regularly carry out security raids. Last month, security forces detained 324 people suspected of links to the Islamic State group in a nationwide sweep. The pattern is familiar: broad security operations, mass detentions and a widening net cast over the population in the name of order.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, DEM, said, “This arbitrary wave of detentions and arrests targeting leftist and socialist institutions once again reveals the state the country has reached,” and added, “Turning Ankara into a giant prison with bans imposed for the NATO Summit is unacceptable.” Those words came from the bottom of the political ladder, where the costs of summit security, policing and repression are actually felt.
The Islamic State group has also carried out numerous deadly attacks in Turkey, including the 2017 New Year’s shooting at an Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people. That history is part of the official justification for the current crackdown, even as the state expands its own powers of detention, restriction and exclusion around the NATO summit.