 for intensified searches, home raids, detentions and arrests targeting dissidents in recent months, stating that they violate the constitution, the ANKA news agency reported on Thursday.){kind=link}
İstanbul Bar Association President İbrahim Kaboğlu criticized the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for intensified searches, home raids, detentions and arrests targeting dissidents in recent months, stating that they violate the constitution, the ANKA news agency reported on Thursday.
Since a coup attempt in 2016, Turkish authorities have intensified their crackdown on opposition figures, facing widespread accusations of using the judiciary as a political tool to silence dissent. The AKP government has further escalated its crackdowns, targeting opposition politicians, mayors, judicial members, journalists, academics, figures from the entertainment industry, civil society organizations and demonstrators participating in anti-government protests in recent months — actions widely perceived as a sign of its growing anxiety ahead of the 2028 elections.
“I did not foresee that legal safeguards would be so undermined,” Kaboğlu told ANKA, regarding the recent increase in investigations, detentions and arrests of dissidents over the past four to five months.
He said such practices of government institutions “violate the constitutional framework, constitutional rules and the mandatory and prohibitive provisions of the constitution.”
Kaboğlu emphasized that arrest and detention procedures must follow specific rules and be based on clear evidence of criminal activity. He expressed concern that the violations of legal processes might be an attempt to obscure the lack of substantial evidence in many cases.
He also compared current practices to past periods of military rule in Turkey, calling the crackdown unprecedented in the last 50 to 55 years in terms of the breadth of its targets, the arbitrariness of the actions and their continuity, emphasizing that it reflects the ongoing erosion of Turkey’s status as a democratic state governed by the rule of law.
“The label of terrorism is being so easily applied now that we have reached a point where anyone who opposes the palace regime … or who doesn’t support the presidential authority, can be called a terrorist,” Kaboğlu said.
He warned that the government is increasingly constricting the political space, silencing civil society and stifling democratic participation, ahead of the 2028 elections. Kaboğlu emphasized that the real challenge lies in whether Turkish society will allow this political dominance to continue or reclaim its democratic influence.