Bill Bostock
Source: BBC
While at Eyüp High School in the 1970s Erdogan was elected chairman of the youth organisation of an Islamic political party called the National Salvation Party.
Turkey had been a secular country since the Ottoman Empire was expelled after the First World War, and Political Islam was unpopular, considered to be dangerous by the administration.
While most Turks were practicing Muslims, the country had passed several versions of a Constitution, as well as operating a judiciary free from religious law.
Erdogan claims that on two occasions Turkish soccer giants Fenerbahce S.K. tried to sign him, but he turned them down twice.
Source: Foreign Policy
He was the city’s first non-secular mayor.
The poem read: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”
Erdogan said after his conviction: “We will continue our democratic struggle to the end. We will not bow our heads before repression.”
He was also banned from running in parliamentary elections.
Erdogan sidestepped his ban by immediately changing the law and running for election after the AKP had ascended to power.
Erdogan was appointed Prime Minister after winning a seat in the local elections in Siirt province.
In 2004, the AKP extended its power by dominating local elections across Turkey.
A key task of Erdogan’s was to lobby the European Union to let Turkey join. Formal talks between the two opened in 2005, but as of November 2019, Turkey has not been approved to join the bloc.
Erdogan also spent much of his time engaged with the US. Washington believed that Turkey would be a key player in a then-potential war with Iraq, which ultimately started after the US invasion in 2003.
During the war Erdogan refused to let the US deploy troops from Kurdish areas in northern Iraq and southern Turkey, straining US-Turkish relations.
Between 2002 and 2014 the AKP won three successive elections.
Source: CNN, Washington Post, Guardian
Eight people died after protesters clashed with police using tear gas and water cannons.
In the wake of the protests, Erdogan said social media, which had played a role in coordinating protests and spreading information, was “the worst menace to society.”
25 protesters were arrested for using Twitter and for “spreading untrue information.”
10 months later, in March 2014, Erdogan banned Twitter for two weeks.
After the protests subsided, Erdogan faced a new problem after a voice recording allegedly showed him ordering his son to dispose of vast amounts of cash. Erdogan said the tapes were fake.
Source: Tech Crunch, CNN, Washington Post, Guardian
Prior to 2014, Turkey’s Parliament had appointed the president, but a 2010 referendum result gave Turks the power to elect the president themselves.
In the first vote since that referendum, Erdogan emerged as winner with 52% of the vote, beating back two challengers.
At the time, critics saw the move as an attempt by Erdogan to use the normally-ceremonial powers invested in the president’s office — which were substantial — to turn Turkey into an authoritarian regime.
Source: Guardian
The Ak Saray palace (White Palace) is built on a 150,000 square-meter side on top of a hill in Ankara.
It cost at least $615 million, has 1,150 rooms, and a garden with thousands of trees, costing $4,000 each, imported from Italy.
It is far bigger than both the White House in Washington, DC, and the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia.
Erdogan’s critics slammed his lavish palace, regularly mocking him with rumors of golden toilet seats. In 2015, Erdogan vowed to resign if anyone could locate a golden toilet seat.
Source: al-Monitor
The government and military factions still loyal to Erdogan clashed with the rebels using tanks, and F-16 jets.
Rebels stormed Turkish state media broadcaster TRT and ordered them to make a statement saying the military was now in charge.
The coup failed, however, and Erdogan’s government restored order by arresting over 100 rebels, with senior military officials later condemning the coup as a rogue operation.
161 people were killed and 1,140 were wounded in the failed coup. Erdogan claimed it had been orchestrated by his opponent Fethullah Gulen, exiled in the US.
European nations criticised the move, saying it showed Turkey was straying down the path of authoritarianism instead of democracy.
Erdogan defended his new powers, saying; “We’ve got a lot to do, we are on this path but it’s time to change gears and go faster. We are carrying out the most important reform in the history of our nation.”
Source: Guardian
There were 4,000 arrests, which came from the military, civil service, media, and police.
50,000 people were detained, with 150,000 suspended from work in the year since the coup started.
A quarter of judges and prosecutors were sacked.
Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said it was clearly a despotic move: “All powers of the legislative, judiciary and executive have been concentrated in one person.”
Source: American Enterprise Institute, Reuters
“Rejecting motherhood means giving up on humanity,” Erdogan, who has four children, said.
Source: Daily Mail
At the time of the coup, Erdogan was vacation at the Aegean coast and was taken to a secure location while military forces attempted to depose him in Ankara.
Source: Vox
Ozil, a German national with Turkish heritage, announced his retirement from German international football after photos of him with Erdogan in May 2018 were met with damning criticism.
Source: The Guardian
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
Between 2014 and 2017, nearly 13,000 instances of insulting the presidency were filed by the government. Most related to newspaper cartoons, memes, political sketches, and jokes.
Article 299 of the Turkish penal code states that insulting the president can lead to as many as four years in jail.
One example which saw Erdogan’s criticized was the guilty verdict of a Turkish man who depicted Erdogan as Gollum from “The Lord of the Rings” in a Facebook post.
Source: BBC
Turkey’s defense ministry claims Syrian Kurdish fighters have violated the cease-fire at least 20 times.
Turkey considers the Syrian forces terrorists.
Source: Washington Post/Business Insider
