The fallout from the June protests in Turkey is settling into a growing pattern of reprisal against those dissenting against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, critics of his government say. But that pattern may be backfiring, as it is fueling further discontent among Erdogan’s opponents and bolstering their ranks with some of his former supporters. Among the newly disenchanted is the prominent scholar Ihsan Dagi. The “new Turkey,” which Erdogan championed on coming to power, and which Dagi tried to understand and explain, has become “old,” the scholar wrote in his farewell note as editor of Insight Turkey, a quarterly review he had headed for more than five years. A professor at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University, Dagi is also stepping down from SETA, the progovernment think tank that publishes the journal. For years, Dagi tells TIME, he supported Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for its commitment to “democratization, membership in the E.U. and globalization.” Gradually, his support waned. Following Erdogan’s tough reaction to the protests that shook Turkey in June, Dagi’s support foundered completely. Dagi, whose wife is a former AKP parliamentarian, says, “I realized I had nothing in common left with the government and progovernment forces in Turkey.” Dagi says his decision to resign was entirely his own, but others say they have been forced out of their jobs in the media because of their coverage of the protests. According to a statement issued by the Turkish Journalists’ Union on July 22, a total of 59 journalists have been fired or forced to resign since late May, when the so-called Gezi protests in Istanbul began. “A large majority of them,” the group alleged, were forced to leave directly in connection with their coverage of the protests. Among those who say they have been stifled are two prominent columnists. Yavuz Baydar, the ombudsman for the newspaper Sabah, was fired on July 23 after he decried the government’s intimidation of the media in a series of articles, including a New York Times op-ed. He has publicly said he was fired for reportingImage may be NSFW.
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