Portrait of the Week
77 articles
Portrait of the Week
MEHMET MURAT ÇALIK: FROM BEYLİKDÜZÜ TO PRISON WITH İMAMOĞLU
The paths of Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mehmet Murat Çalık first crossed in 2014. İmamoğlu had just been elected mayor of Beylikdüzü. Çalık began working with him as deputy mayor. In 2019, when İmamoğlu became Mayor of Istanbul, Çalık was elected mayor of Beylikdüzü in the same elections.
Portrait of the Week
‘GOD’S MAN’ ARRESTED
“We’re from Adana, we’re God’s men.” If you ever visit Adana, you’ll hear this phrase—it’s on the lips of nearly every local. It’s like a common slogan, spoken across party lines, and always in the distinct Adana dialect. Adana Mayor Zeydan Karalar, arrested in this week’s wave of detentions targeting CHP municipalities, often uses this saying himself. He even printed posters featuring the phrase and released a video claiming it originated among troops from Adana during the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli.
Portrait of the Week
WHY IS TUNÇ SOYER ALWAYS A TARGET?
Tunç Soyer, the former mayor of İzmir, was detained as part of an operation targeting the municipality and its affiliated companies during his term.
Portrait of the Week
FATİH ALTAYLI: WHEN A JOURNALIST IS JAILED
This week, Fatih Altaylı joined the list of jailed journalists. A veteran of mainstream media, Altaylı had turned to his YouTube channel as the media landscape shifted. He was arrested over remarks made in his most recent broadcast. The charge: “threatening the president.”
Portrait of the Week
THE BLESSED BAKLAVA OF ALİ KOÇ
Ali Koç is the president of Fenerbahçe, one of Turkey’s “big three” football clubs, alongside Galatasaray and Beşiktaş. Recently, he was seen eating baklava ahead of Fenerbahçe’s EuroLeague basketball final match in Abu Dhabi. Former minister and current ruling party MP Mustafa Varank was feeding him the baklava, which had been brought from Turkey. Varank said the baklava had been “prayed over,” to which Koç responded with an “amen.” In Turkey, when something is said to be “prayed over,” it means it has been blessed.
Portrait of the Week
NACİ BOSTANCI: DEFENDING A JEWISH SINGER
Naci Bostancı is an academic—political scientist, sociologist, and communications scholar. He currently serves as the rector of Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University. But that’s not the whole story. For many years, he was a member of parliament, holding senior roles within the ruling AKP. At one point, he even occupied the position of second-in-command after President Erdoğan within the party hierarchy. In the 2023 elections, he chose not to run again and returned to academia.
Portrait of the Week
WHAT AHMET TÜRK HAS WITNESSED
The great poet Nâzım Hikmet begins his epic poem The Epic of the War of Independence with the line, “We have seen fire and betrayal.” Ahmet Türk has stood at the very heart of politics for fifty years—right in the midst of what could only be called a political firestorm. What he has witnessed is a story of Turkey and the painful fortune of these lands.
Portrait of the Week
AN ANTI-CAPITALIST AT THE EARTHLY TABLE: İHSAN ELİAÇIK
Though not an official cleric, İhsan Eliaçık drew public attention when he led the funeral prayer for Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a prominent member of the İmralı delegation.
Portrait of the Week
WILL ISTANBULITES SLEEP OR FLEE?
In the 1970s, Turkey was plagued by deadly street clashes that claimed at least 10 lives a day. One of the bloodiest moments came in 1977, when the May Day rally in Istanbul’s Taksim Square turned into a massacre after shots were fired into the crowd, killing over 30 people. The ongoing ban on May Day rallies in Taksim dates back to that tragedy. As the violence escalated, conventional media outlets repeatedly asked, “Where is Turkey heading?” The era came to a close with the military coup of September 12, 1980.
Portrait of the Week
AN AKP FIGURE OF WEIGHT: BROTHER BÜLENT
Bülent Arınç. Most recently, he stirred controversy with his criticism of the cancellation of Ekrem İmamoğlu’s diploma and his detention. “Neighborhood” has become a widely used concept that reflects the deep polarization in Turkish politics. There’s an “AKP neighborhood,” we say, and there’s an “opposition neighborhood.” But with his remarks, which carried a tone of self-criticism, Arınç managed to draw a backlash from both his own neighborhood and its direct opposite. For those who know him, Arınç’s remarks came as no surprise. Throughout the AKP’s 23 years in power, he has been one of the few — perhaps the only — figures to voice such open dissent from within. Why? He puts it this way: “I have a certain weight of my own. I’m not like the others.”
Portrait of the Week
MAHMUT TANAL: SOUNDING THE SIREN
What is an ambulance for? What role does it play in our lives? An ambulance is a vehicle to transfer patients and the injured between hospitals. It also carries a team and equipment capable of providing urgent medical care. Because of the critical condition of those it transports, it moves through traffic with its sirens blaring. Very well, and who is Mahmut Tanal? What role does he play in our lives? And what does he have to do with an ambulance? Tanal is an MP from the CHP. A lawyer.
Portrait of the Week
MAHİR POLAT CASE: “SAVING THE CITY FROM DEATH”
We begin with a cliché frequently heard in a negative context when discussing Turkey’s political and social developments: “This can’t be happening too!” During the operation targeting Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, nearly 100 people—one of them Mahir Polat—were detained. Who is Mahir Polat? He is the deputy secretary general of the municipality and a close member of İmamoğlu’s core team. That much may be understandable. But Polat’s imprisonment triggered yet another “this can’t be happening” moment.