The Turkish government’s relentless campaign to crush dissent has officially entered a new, sweeping phase, with the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor‘s Office issuing detention warrants in a massive, years-long investigation targeting activist social media accounts. This is not a targeted operation against a specific threat; it is a digital witch hunt designed to intimidate and silence any citizen who dares to organize, protest, or even question the state’s narrative online.
The scope of the investigation reveals the regime’s deep-seated paranoia. The dragnet encompasses everything from criticism of Turkey’s military offensive in Afrin, Syria, to posts about workers’ rights demonstrations. Most tellingly, it aggressively targets accounts associated with the 2013 Gezi Park protests, proving once again that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has never forgiven and will never forget the millions who peacefully challenged his rule five years ago. His personal vendetta against the spirit of Gezi continues to fuel the state’s repressive machinery.
Accounts for student unions, photography collectives, and even local solidarity groups fighting to save a neighborhood high school are now considered criminal enterprises by the state. The detention of Ertuğ Dinseven, an activist with the “Acıbadem Solidarity” group, demonstrates how no act of civic organization is too small to escape the government’s watchful eye.
This is the chilling result of a vast state surveillance operation. We now know the İstanbul Police Department‘s cybercrime unit has been building these cases since at least 2017. With authorities openly admitting to monitoring some 45 million social media users nationwide, it’s clear that the government’s goal is to create a panopticon where every citizen feels watched and every critical post carries the risk of a pre-dawn police raid.
The recent announcement that legal action was taken against 313 social media users in a single week is just a glimpse of the scale of this crackdown. Under Erdoğan‘s rule, the public square has been criminalized, and now, its digital equivalent is being systematically dismantled. This is not about law and order; it is about enforcing absolute loyalty and ensuring that the chorus of dissent that once filled Gezi Park is never heard again—not on the streets, and not online.
