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Turkey’s actors, artists under pressure as gov’t turns up the heat

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Ayse Barım, a renowned manager of Turkish television stars, has always steered clear of politics, but that did not help her escape prison on charges of attempting to overthrow the government.

Barım, put in pretrial detention on Monday, joined a long list of personalities being prosecuted by the authorities, a move denounced by opposition parties that accuse the government of using the judiciary to intimidate dissidents.

The charges against Barım date back to 2013, when protests started over the government’s urbanization plans for Gezi Park in the heart of İstanbul. Prosecutors accuse her of “pushing” her actors to take part in anti-government demonstrations, a claim she denies.

Famous actors including Halit Ergenç, star of the world-famous Turkish series “The Magnificent Century,” are also under judicial scrutiny as part of the same probe.

Ergenç was summoned for questioning last Friday.

For Mehmet Esen, actor and former president of the Turkish Film Workers’ Union, it is an attempt to put a stranglehold on the cultural sector, one of the few realms not entirely controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s conservative government.

“Artists have great influence in Turkey. What’s more, most of them are dissidents. They take a stand against injustice. It’s clear that the government wants to break that,” Esen said.

Power struggle

Speeches delivered by artists at film festival ceremonies and the scripts of some Turkish TV series that break audience records are often critical of the government and touch on pressing issues in society, including women’s rights and the polarization between conservatives and secularists.

“The cultural sphere has become an area of power struggle between the opposition and the government,” said Göksel Aymaz, a sociologist at Marmara University in İstanbul.

According to Aymaz, even if Barım was not politically engaged, this did not prevent the government from viewing her as a “force” behind the Gezi protests.

“As long as she’s a prominent figure in the series sector, it doesn’t matter whether she’s politicized or not,” he said.

“The government’s aim is to reshape the industry by imposing its influence in order to perpetuate its power.”

İstanbul mayor targeted

Turkish authorities regularly target journalists, lawyers and elected political representatives, especially since a failed coup in 2016 against the government.

In mid-January prosecutors opened an investigation into the İstanbul Bar Association on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda, accusing it of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies.

The probe was opened because lawyers had called for an investigation into the death of two Turkish Kurdish journalists in Syria in late December, in an area where Kurdish fighters were operating.

Since local elections in March last year, 10 opposition mayors have also been arrested, removed from office and replaced by government-appointed administrators.

And on Tuesday, three journalists from the opposition Halk TV were detained for broadcasting an interview with an expert witness in an investigation into Istanbul’s popular Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.

Two of them were released under judicial supervision on Wednesday.

İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival, was summoned to appear before the public prosecutor on Friday, even though he is already the subject of numerous other legal proceedings.

According to observers, the investigation targeting the television sector could also be aimed at İmamoğlu, who was re-elected with fanfare as mayor of Turkey’s largest city.

The Yeni Şafak pro-government daily has already accused Barım of using her influence to support the mayor.

“The power of justice is being abused to spread fear in all strata of society. We are not afraid and we will not remain silent,” İmamoğlu commented on X.

His main opposition CHP party also denounced what it described as a “climate of fear.”

“The government is trying to discourage civil society by showing that it can neutralize the journalists or politicians it trusts,” political scientist Mesut Yeğen said on the private broadcaster İlke TV on Tuesday.

“Thus, it is trying to prevent any street movement that might lead to a call for early elections,” he said.

© Agence France-Presse

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