Acclaimed film director Fatih Akın said he fears ending up behind bars if he returns to Turkey, with his manager in jail there accused of attempting to overthrow the government, adding that anything is possible since Turkey is being run by “mobsters,” Turkish Minute reported.
The Turkish-German auteur, a hero to many in the country for films like “Head-On,” “In the Fade” and the İstanbul music documentary “Crossing the Bridge,” told Agence France-Presse late Friday that agent Ayşe Barım is “totally apolitical and innocent” of the charges, which relate to protests 12 years ago.
“If they put her in prison, what the hell is going on?” Akın asked. “So I better not go there. I don’t want to take the risk.”
Barım, 56, who was arrested in January, denied helping to organize the 2013 Gezi protests which shook the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying she only attended the protests to accompany her clients, some of Turkey’s most famous stars.
Prosecutors accused her of “pushing” her actors to take part, a claim she denies.
A small demonstration to save some trees in a park in central İstanbul spiralled into nationwide anti-government protests that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets.
The Hamburg-born Akin, whose new film “Amrun” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, said “officially there is no warrant for me.”
“But to be honest, I don’t know,” he added, saying anything was possible as Turkey was being run by “mobsters.”
“They have other values, it’s shocking,” he said.
Opposition silenced
“Certain politicians are not even afraid to go to war if this helps them to stay in power. And Erdogan is one of them,” he added.
Turkey has been hit by the biggest wave of protests in years since the arrest in March of İstanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu on corruption charges.
The popular mayor is Erdoğan’s biggest political rival, with the opposition and rights groups saying he was locked up to stop him from running against the president in the 2028 general election.
Nearly 2,000 people have been detained in the crackdown on dissent since İmamoğlu’s arrest, with his X account also blocked.
Akın, whose family comes from the Black Sea region like Erdoğan’s, said part of the “nonsense” case against Barım is that “she had spoken 39 times” with jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2022.
“Those 39 times were because of my film ‘The Cut,’ which touched on the Ottoman-era genocide of Armenians because Kavala financed part of it and she’s managing me. So they talked because of me and both are now in prison. I’m the connecting point,” he said.
Barım was about as far from an activist as you could imagine, he added. “She’s an agent, a talent manager — a neo-liberal capitalist, for heaven’s sake.”
The Golden Globe and Golden Bear winner said he suspected Turkish prosecutors would try to pretend that he was also “part of the gang” plotting to overthrow Erdoğan.
“A lot of people are proud of me” for showcasing Turkish culture and the diaspora, “but these people don’t care about that,” Akın added.
Turkish authorities regularly target journalists, lawyers, celebrities and elected political representatives, especially since a failed 2016 coup against the government.
