What is the difference between the protests in Turkey and in Serbia – commented on "Mrezhata" on the "Hristo Botev" program Stoyan Georgiev, a journalist from BTV.
"It is their judicial systems that are the reason why people take to the streets. When a judicial system is taken over, we can see how it can be used. In Turkey, for example, a journalist I spoke to was in prison for almost a year for saying a proverb. She uses the word "buhalka" for their judicial system. It is strange that she uses exactly the word "buhalka", like we do in Bulgaria, but here, when the prosecutor's office hits someone, there is still a chance.
There, the entire judicial system has been taken over and is a bat because it imprisoned a person who simply said a proverb against... it's not even against a president. She didn't even use his name specifically.
Maybe what's happening now in Turkey is a new step in tightening the regime, literally tightening the nuts on anyone who is critical. They're already reaching the point of breaking these nuts, because you can tighten something, but you can't do it forever."
The metaphor in action
"In Turkey, this tightening began in 2015, even before the so-called "coup attempt", in which every free journalist in Turkey who had to flee defined it as a fabricated coup. The critical part of society in Turkey is branded as Gulenists, similar to foreign agents in Russia or Sorosoids in our country.
These people are dehumanized, given some kind of label, according to which they are supposedly enemies of society, but in practice these are the most critically thinking journalists and the intelligentsia literally - people from all walks of life, starting with doctors, teachers, university professors.
Speaking of repression, what is happening in Turkey goes beyond our ideas of repression. They get to the point where the prosecutor's office charges you and you really go to prison, where they hand out years like popcorn. Ten years, fifteen years for saying a word or writing something on social networks.
One of the days I was running in Turkey, in Istanbul, among the protesters there were some people who seemed to be from the services, with a different profile than the protesters who were just walking around everywhere. The fact is that every single day information comes out about so-and-so charges being filed and so-and-so being detained. Dozens, hundreds are charged under an article of the Criminal Code. According to this article of the Criminal Code, for insulting the president, you go to prison. Simply put, you go to the square, chant against the president and you are charged with insulting him, and this charge provides for up to 6 years in prison.
It is as brutal and as extreme as in Russia.
But unlike Russia, Turkey has more than 100 years of democratic traditions. And whatever is happening at this moment, repressions, etc., these traditions continue there.
In practice, the protesters in Turkey have already given a signal that there is already dissatisfaction with Erdogan."