Rights groups and European politicians have accused Turkey of using next month’s NATO summit in Ankara as a pretext to silence independent media and civil society, citing mass detentions before the meeting and the denial of accreditation to critical Turkish outlets and journalists, Turkish Minute reported.
The summit, scheduled for July 7-8, is expected to bring leaders from NATO’s 32 member states to the Turkish capital.
Turkish authorities have imposed sweeping security measures ahead of the meeting, including restrictions on demonstrations, public gatherings and other events.
A Turkish court on Thursday ordered the arrest of 103 people, including environmental volunteers, an academic, lawyers and a journalist, in operations carried out in Ankara ahead of the summit.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered simultaneous raids on Tuesday as part of what it described as an investigation into terrorism-related activity across the country. Police and gendarmerie teams detained 225 people, according to local media reports.
After questioning, 135 suspects were referred to the Ankara Courthouse. Prosecutors released six of them and referred 129 to court on charges of membership in an armed terrorist organization. The court arrested 103 suspects and imposed judicial supervision measures, including house arrest, on 26 others.
Human Rights Watch denounced the mass detentions before the court ordered the arrests, saying the operation showed Turkey’s “ruthless intolerance” of freedom of speech and assembly.
“The misuse of terrorism laws to conduct mass arrests and silence people in the run-up to a NATO summit flies in the face of the founding values of the alliance,” Benjamin Ward, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.
He called on Turkish authorities to release the detainees and urged Turkey’s NATO allies to use their influence to press Ankara to change course.
“Clearing the streets of Ankara of potential protesters only further exposes the Turkish government’s deepening repression,” Ward said.
The detentions have also been linked by critics to a separate controversy over NATO’s accreditation process for the Ankara summit.
Some independent and opposition-leaning Turkish media outlets and journalists critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were denied permission to cover the event, according to press groups and the outlets themselves.
European Democrats, a European political group, said on X that NATO had denied accreditation to independent Turkish media critical of Erdoğan and that repression around the summit had also hit civil society.
“Around the summit, repression also hit civil society: 241 warrants and 209 detentions targeting activists, trade unionists, LGBTQ+ voices, lawyers and academics, including Kaos GL’s Yıldız Tar,” the group said
“This is not how a NATO summit is organised. Not with repression. Not with a summit turned into one more excuse to silence democracy,” it added.
NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said on Thursday for summits held outside its Brussels headquarters, the alliance relies on the host country to assess and approve applications from local journalists.
The alliance said it was in contact with Turkish authorities and that media access to major NATO events was important.
The Turkish government has not publicly commented in detail on the accreditation dispute.
Spanish MEP Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, also criticized both the accreditation decisions and the detentions.
“NATO was never a club of democracies … and it isn’t now,” Sánchez Amor said on X. “When an authoritarian Gov hosts the summit you get arbitrary media accreditation & >200 people detained in some ‘preventive’ operation.”
“Sadly, none of this seems to be keeping Rutte awake at night,” he added, referring to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
The Ankara Governor’s Office has also imposed restrictions on public gatherings ahead of the summit, including bans on demonstrations, rallies, press statements, sit-ins, hunger strikes and vigils in the capital from June 28 to July 10.
Turkish media have reported other restrictions and preparations across the capital, including the cancellation of public events, tighter security around summit venues and routes, the removal of stray dogs from some areas and cosmetic work along roads leading from the airport.
Critics say the arrests, public gathering bans and media accreditation refusals show that Ankara is using the NATO summit to shield itself from protest and critical coverage.
Turkish authorities say the measures are necessary for security ahead of a high-level international meeting.
