On 2 October 2018 a workforce of brokers dispatched by the Saudi authorities strangled dissident Washington Put up columnist Jamal Khashoggi after he entered the consulate constructing in Istanbul. The revered journalist’s physique was dismembered and, in response to Turkish intelligence, dissolved in acid. The CIA mentioned Khashoggi’s state-employed assassins acted on the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Since that darkish day, Turkey’s repute as a hub of transnational repression has grown.
Uyghur dissidents within the nation are one group feeling the consequences of China’s transnational energy. Turkey was as soon as seen as a haven for the persecuted individuals from China’s northwest given the linguistic, cultural and spiritual overlaps, and was subsequently dwelling to the biggest numbers of Uyghurs exterior of China. Now the incidents of assaults of Uyghur dissidents are going up and up. In accordance with a 2023 report from Safeguard Defenders, greater than one-third of Uyghurs interviewed in Turkey mentioned they’d been harassed by Chinese language police or state brokers whereas within the nation. Main activists have been deported. It’s unclear about Turkey’s stance right here they usually have but to ratify an extradition treaty which Beijing signed in December 2020. Nonetheless, it’s removed from protected and if Turkey do ratify the treaty Uyghurs shall be much more uncovered.
One other group to really feel the consequences are Iranian dissidents. Over the previous half-decade, Iranian intelligence brokers have carried out a number of operations on Turkish soil, at instances even aided by members of Turkey’s judiciary and police pressure. In September 2023, a former Turkish prosecutor was sentenced to 11 years and eight months in jail for collaborating with Iranian intelligence. Among the many 15 others tried in courtroom had been two law enforcement officials. In 2019, the prosecutor allegedly took $50,000 in return for offering the situation of Mohammed Rezaei, a former Iranian navy officer, to Iranian intelligence.
The operation to kidnap Rezaei – carried out utilizing the automobile of the Turkish state prosecutor – failed. The try and seize Shahnam Golshani, the supervisor of the Iranian web site Mesghal, additionally failed. An authority on the worth of onerous forex, Golshani’s web site was blocked in Iran in 2013 after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad misplaced management of the forex market and requested Golshani to publish decrease charges for onerous forex to calm individuals, which he refused to do. There have been studies that the Courts of First Occasion issued the dying penalty towards Golshani. He fled the nation illegally over the border into Turkey in 2013.
Iranian intelligence did not seize Golshani and Rezaei however managed to abduct a former Iranian colonel, Mashali Firouze. One other ‘success’ got here in 2022, when the Iranian dissident Mohammad Bagher Moradi, 9 years after taking refuge in Turkey, left dwelling to purchase bread. He by no means returned. The police discovered his deserted automobile, and his household pointed to the Iranian intelligence as culprits. Moradi, a member of Saraye Ahl-e Ghalam (Writers’ Affiliation), had obtained a five-year jail sentence on the cost of ‘unlawful gathering and collusion towards nationwide safety’ whereas residing in Iran.
Trapped between Turkey and Iran
Esmaeil Fattahi, a dissident on the watchlist of Iranian intelligence, mentioned he can’t ignore these developments and simply proceed along with his life. Born in 1988, Fattahi has been residing in Turkey since 2015. His crime was to weblog in regards to the political state of affairs in Iran. He was a part of a gaggle that labored clandestinely, distributing pamphlets, conducting secret conferences, and placing up graffiti to spotlight human rights and girls’s rights struggles inside Iranian factories.
First arrested aged 15 in Tabriz, the place he lived, Fattahi spent six months in jail. 4 years later, he was once more sentenced to 6 months. His arrest in 2010 led to a five-year jail time period. By the point of his launch, Fattahi grew to become satisfied he’d depart Iran. ‘After I left jail in 2015, I used to be 27, and I had spent round a fourth of [my life], six years, in jail,’ he informed Index.
After his launch, Fattahi discovered one other case had been opened towards him – for reporting on the torturous circumstances in Iran’s prisons to worldwide human rights organisations. Additionally, he couldn’t get employment. ‘The Iranian media known as me “the canine of Israel and America” and claimed I used to be an agent, a communist,’ he recalled. The proprietor of a restaurant the place he labored supplied his apologies earlier than firing Fattahi. ‘As soon as they discovered who I used to be, it was over. No person wished to take the chance.’
Fattahi made headlines in Turkey when, in 2021, he was arrested with three different Iranian dissidents within the Anatolian metropolis of Denizli for attending a protest occasion towards Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Conference. This Council of Europe treaty, which Turkey had been the primary to register 2011, opposes violence towards ladies and home violence. However as Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his far-right allies launched a conflict towards the thought of a culturally decided gender, they turned the treaty right into a hate object which they declare is defended by woke race traitors, and nefarious powers within the pay of George Soros.
Fattahi joined Leili Faraji and Zeinab Sahafi for the protest, took a banner and delivered a speech. He was joined by members of the Iranian LGBTQI+ neighborhood in Turkey. A month later, he obtained a name from the mom of Sahafi, who mentioned her daughter was detained. Two different telephone calls adopted. An ally, Mohammad Pourakbari Kermani, who hadn’t even participated within the protest, was additionally detained.
Fattahi didn’t return dwelling and headed to the police headquarters in Denizli, the place he was swiftly put behind bars. The 4 dissidents refused to signal a voluntary return doc and spent a month in a deportation centre in Aydın. Public furore and a viral social media marketing campaign adopted. Amnesty and Freedom Home pressured Turkey’s Inside Ministry. There was even a parliamentary query in regards to the arrests. ‘We acquired out because of these,’ mentioned Fattahi.
These days he lives in a special Anatolian city. ‘Iran is a totalitarian state with not a shred of democracy, press freedom or freedom of expression,’ he mentioned. ‘Right here in Turkey, police can detain you to your political beliefs and a decide can, at most, sentence you to jail. In Iran, they cling you or topic you to whipping.’
Miniatürk, Istanbul. Cropped picture by Boris Dzhingarov through Wikimedia Commons
He’s apprehensive about being kidnapped. ‘For years, Iranian brokers entered Turkey simply. Final 12 months, a pal of ours was assassinated in Istanbul,’ he mentioned. The state of affairs is especially perilous in cities reminiscent of Van, near the Iranian border. ‘Iranian brokers tried to kidnap a pal of mine to Iran final month.’
Fattahi receives dying threats on social media on a regular basis and reads emails whose senders describe what they’ll ‘do’ to him ‘quickly’. ‘I’ve been getting these for the previous seven years. I can’t simply ignore them,’ he mentioned.
Nonetheless, he feels fortunate. Many refugees dwell in abject poverty in Turkey, with no monetary assist and no work permits, which leads them to work illegally. Undocumented refugees do essentially the most difficult work for the longest hours and obtain the bottom wages. As a freelancer working from dwelling, Fattahi can no less than manage his life. ‘I order all my meals and groceries from my telephone. I strive to not exit in any respect. I solely exit to stroll my canine, which I do very fastidiously. Most refugees work 12 hours exterior, and plenty of have dedicated suicide due to the circumstances.’
Final 12 months, a pal of Fattahi, who had been in Turkey for seven years, known as him to say he was going again. ‘I encountered a lot racism right here, and my spouse left me due to our monetary state of affairs. I favor going to jail in Iran than being right here,’ Fattahi remembered him saying.
In 2019, the police broke down the door of Fattahi’s home, and he awakened with a gun subsequent to his head. 4 males in black balaclavas took him to the police headquarters. ‘There have been cameras within the station, in order that they beat me up in the bathroom,’ Fattahi mentioned. The next day, they set him free. When he sued the police who intimidated him, a courtroom handed him a seven-month jail sentence and a tremendous for ‘resisting safety forces’.
Pondering the long run, he’s significantly apprehensive about kidnapping makes an attempt carried out by Iranian spies who can then return to Iran with none hurdles. ‘I’ve to be continually cautious about my relationships right here,’ he mentioned.
The dispersing Russian Ark
Dissidents from different nations, reminiscent of Eva Rapoport, who’s Russian, encounter completely different challenges. The cultural anthropologist and photographer left Russia in 2013 earlier than the annexation of Crimea. ‘I assumed that the state of affairs would hold deteriorating and sooner or later all would go down in flames,’ she recalled. Rapoport moved from Moscow to Southeast Asia and lived in Indonesia for some time earlier than ending up in Turkey in 2020.
She rented an condo in Istanbul, hoping issues would return to regular. However they went in the wrong way. The brand new anti-war wave of Russian immigration started, with 1000’s of liberal Russians and people against the conflict shifting to Turkey. Rapoport seen she had benefits in contrast with individuals who had left Russia with none preparation. ‘I had native data about the right way to dwell in Istanbul,’ she mentioned. She determined to place that to good use.
Rapoport is a part of the Ark Challenge, based in March 2022 as a response to the criminalization of Russians who disagree with the conflict in Ukraine. ‘The Ark is the primary initiative that centrally helps individuals from Russia who left due to an anti-war stance,’ its web site proclaims. ‘Now, the viewers of the Ark is about half 1,000,000 individuals.’
It had been easy for Russians to go to Turkey, a well-liked vacationer vacation spot because the Nineties. For years, scores of Russians got here to the Mediterranean haven of Antalya and stayed in all-inclusive lodges. ‘For dissidents who take refuge in Turkey, they don’t really feel threatened, and right here they don’t really feel like aliens,’ Rapoport mentioned.
She had spent months organizing lectures on subjects pertaining to the state of affairs in Russia but additionally addressing Turkish and Center Japanese historical past, tradition and politics. The programme – for which she chosen audio system from September 2022 till March 2023 – did very properly. ‘Our hottest occasions had been gathering over 100 individuals. We had one poetry studying in November which attracted 60 individuals.’ However in December 2022, issues took a flip for the more severe.
‘Turkish authorities stopped issuing residency permits. Individuals started getting rejections. No person knew what was occurring. By spring, heaps of people that had been going to remain left,’ Rapoport mentioned. Their departure was not voluntarily. As an alternative, they had been pushed out, their visas not renewed. There are numerous theories about why: some hyperlink it to strain from Putin, a powerful ally of Erdoğan, to not present refuge to dissidents, however it’s equally doable to elucidate Erdoğan’s change of coronary heart as the results of the rise of anti-refugee sentiment among the many citizens.
Like Fattahi, Rapoport is anxious about the way forward for dissidents. ‘I don’t see my future even for the following 10 months in Turkey,’ she mentioned. ‘I used to be fairly enthusiastic right here when the immigration started, proper after the conflict and the primary wave, and the second in September, following mobilization. There was this sense that Istanbul might develop into a brand new hub for Russian opposition tradition, an excellent model of what Russian cultural and mental life may very well be. Then it grew to become clear that folks weren’t staying; individuals who had been keen to begin some tasks right here or had began companies additionally didn’t have their residencies renewed. Individuals left, and they’re going to hold leaving.’
The Ark Challenge, which conducts its communications through Telegram, has 1000’s of members in Turkey. Is Rapoport conscious of the destiny they share with Iranian dissidents? ‘There have been jokes right here about Russians and Iranians coming collectively and having an argument about whose passport is worse,’ she mentioned. At the same time as Russia falls beneath extra worldwide sanctions, Iranian passports are nonetheless worse when it comes to the variety of nations its holders can journey to, she added.
Suspended lives
Each Fattahi and Rapoport say their important downside will not be figuring out what the long run holds. ‘I do not know whether or not I’ll depart Turkey subsequent 12 months or in a decade. I can neither examine, open a brand new enterprise or arrange a life,’ Fattahi mentioned. ‘I’m 35, and I’ve spent virtually a decade right here, not going to school and amassing nothing to safe my life. If I left Turkey at present, I’d start from scratch.’
Like Rapoport, Fattahi had tried to provoke cultural occasions for like-minded Iranian dissidents. He rented a restaurant the place they may learn books collectively and have weekly screenings of movies about social points, together with LGBTQI+ rights. ‘However we are able to’t do these now,’ he mentioned. ‘Individuals in Iran suppose Turkey is a free nation with freedom for ladies and the liberty to eat alcohol. They don’t realise Turkey will not be a free and democratic nation till they begin residing right here.’
This text was initially printed within the 2024 spring difficulty of Index on Censorship. Kaya Genç is Index’s Turkey contributing editor.
