iNCi FURNi

ince 2016, hundreds of Turkish civil rights activists, academics, and journalists have been detained without trial and questioned, or have been fired from their jobs as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attempts to root out dissidents. In April, it appeared that there would be blowback against the dominance of Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) when representatives from the opposition group won the mayoral elections for the nation’s two major cities, Ankara and Istanbul. However, AKP then demanded a recount of the votes. Two weeks later, when the reassessment confirmed that they had lost, AKP submitted a plea to the Supreme Election Council for a re-election. I visited İnci Furni’s Istanbul