As world leaders gathered in Ankara for a high-stakes NATO summit, Turkey’s government found itself facing sharp criticism over the detention of anti-NATO demonstrators — and the question of where legitimate security measures end and political suppression begins.
On Sunday, Turkish police detained more than 100 people during a march organized by the Communist Party of Turkey, known by its Turkish initials TKP, in Ankara’s Kızılay Square, according to Reuters. Officers deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd as demonstrators waved party flags and chanted against NATO’s presence in Turkey. Similar rallies took place under heavy police watch in Istanbul’s Taksim Square and the Kadıköy district.
It is worth noting that the TKP is not an outlawed organization. It is a legally registered political party that appears in the official registry maintained by Turkey’s Court of Cassation Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, with Kemal İbrahim Okuyan listed as its leader. The fact that a lawful political party organized the protest makes the mass detentions more difficult to dismiss as purely a security response.
The arrests came just ahead of the July 7-8 NATO summit, which brought together leaders from all 32 member nations — including President Donald Trump — to discuss defense spending, the war in Ukraine, military production, recent regional conflicts, and Turkey’s expanding role in Western defense cooperation.
Turkish authorities have a straightforward argument for tightening security. A summit of this scale draws heads of state, cabinet ministers, large diplomatic delegations, media crews, and security personnel from across the alliance. In preparation, Ankara restricted movement in parts of the city, closed roads, increased police patrols, and prohibited public demonstrations near the venue.
But critics say those powers are being stretched well beyond their intended purpose. Turkey’s constitution guarantees freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association. In practice, those rights are governed by a law known as Law No. 2911, which gives provincial governors broad authority to ban gatherings on public order or security grounds. Human rights organizations have long argued that this authority is applied far too broadly, effectively turning constitutional protections into rights that exist only on paper.
Human Rights Watch reported that Turkish police arrested at least 209 people in Ankara during overnight raids on June 22-23, weeks before the summit. Those swept up in the raids included political activists, lawyers, an academic, and journalist and LGBT activist Yıldız Tar. Turkish officials said the operations targeted armed groups, including Islamic State and far-left organizations, but Human Rights Watch characterized the detentions as evidence of Turkey’s “ruthless intolerance of freedom of speech and assembly.”
Reuters also reported that Turkish prosecutors had issued arrest warrants for 241 suspects tied to investigations into Islamic State and far-left groups, including DHKP-C, MLKP, and TKP/ML. Opposition figures described the raids as part of a wider campaign against democratic freedoms and civil liberties.
The crackdown has spread beyond protest organizers. The Financial Times reported additional detentions in the lead-up to the summit, including journalists and opposition campaigners. Among those arrested was comedian Deniz Göktaş, taken into custody following a YouTube comedy sketch that mocked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. His case has deepened concerns about speech restrictions and the government’s use of law enforcement against its critics.
The pressure on the press has also drawn attention. Reuters reported that dozens of Turkish journalists from independent news outlets were denied credentials to cover the summit. NATO stated that accreditation decisions were made based on guidance provided by the host country.
Amnesty International has noted that freedom of peaceful assembly and association in Turkey remains arbitrarily restricted, with police using force against peaceful demonstrators and courts pursuing charges under protest-related statutes. That track record sits uneasily alongside a NATO summit built around the language of collective defense, democracy, and a rules-based international order.
Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952 and commands one of the alliance’s largest military forces. Its control of the Turkish Straits — the waterway connecting the Mediterranean and Black Seas — gives it enormous strategic importance. Turkey also sits at the crossroads of Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. For NATO, Turkey is not a country that can simply be sidelined.
Anti-NATO sentiment in Turkey runs deep across a range of political currents, from leftists and nationalists to Islamists and anti-imperialist movements. Critics of the alliance view it as an instrument of American power and foreign military influence, while supporters see it as a source of military strength and diplomatic standing.
That is the complicated backdrop to this week’s gathering. Erdoğan wants Turkey recognized as an indispensable NATO partner. Protesters want NATO out of Turkey altogether. Rights organizations want Western leaders to press Ankara on civil liberties. And those same Western leaders want Turkey’s cooperation on Ukraine, Black Sea security, defense production, and regional diplomacy.
The underlying tension is nothing new, but it is becoming harder to overlook. NATO needs Turkey, and Turkey’s government knows it. That leverage gives Erdoğan considerable room to host the alliance on his own terms — and the wave of arrests before the summit illustrates the cost of that arrangement. A gathering designed to project allied unity is simultaneously shining a spotlight on the shrinking space for dissent in the country where it is being held.
