Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu featured in Al-Monitor

In an April 20 article in Al-Monitor, “Erdogan is MENA’s most popular leader, Arab Barometer finds,” Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu discussed the role of politics and religion in President Erdoğan’s popularity.

Despite these cultural maneuverings, the president’s popularity has less to do with cultural heritage and more with his political ideology, said Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey program coordinator at The Project on Democracy.

“For many people in the region, Erdogan represents a pious Muslim populist leader who defies a secularist, pro-Western establishment in Turkey and who defends Muslims on the international stage,” Tahiroglu wrote to Al-Monitor. “This image earns him a lot of street cred, particularly among dissidents and Islamists in the Arab world.”

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Facebook Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu featured on the Greek Current Podcast

Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu appears on the April 7th episode of the Greek Current podcast, “Turkey’s experiment with Clubhouse and Erdogan’s crackdown on social media.” She joins Thanos Davelis to discuss how Clubhouse rose in popularity in Turkey and how the subsequent crackdown unfolded:

Because it was such a new app, and I guess the government censors were not yet on the app, it was this sort of free space where the students and faculty could talk to thousands of people who downloaded the app […] And human rights lawyers would join these discussions, other activists would join these discussions. […] All of that died down and suddenly all I was seeing were these pro-goverment journalists and pundits.

Listen to the full episode here.

Photo Credit: The Greek Current Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu writes commentary for Brookings’ TechStream blog

Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu wrote a commentary, “On Turkish Clubhouse, a brief experiment in a more open web,” that appeared on Brookings’ TechStream blog on Friday. In the piece, Tahiroğlu charts the rise and fall of Clubhouse in Turkey and comments on the difficulties of using social media to exercise free speech.

When students at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, Turkey’s top academic institution, gathered in January to protest President Recep Tayyip’s Erdoğan’s eleventh-hour appointment by fiat of a government loyalist as their new rector, they turned to a new platform to take their message beyond the walls of their campus. Clubhouse was still in beta, only available on iPhones and by invitation, when Turkish student protesters discovered it. But it allowed up to 5,000 people to join chat rooms in which they could converse with strangers in a user-moderated audio discussion. The app became a hub of opposition politics and students began to host discussions about Erdoğan’s abuses of power. Thousands across the country flocked into chat rooms to listen to protesters’ stories—often in hours-long discussions deep into the night. Activists and lawyers joined to offer advice, journalists to find sources, and many others just to stay informed. By the end of January, the app had grown so popular that even the country’s 62-year-old former prime minister-turned-opposition leader Ahmet Davutoğlu was scheduling talks on Clubhouse.

But this brief experiment in a free-wheeling corner of the web was not to last.

Read the full piece here.

Photo Credit: Brookings / TechStream Deputy Director for Research Amy Hawthorne quoted in the Washington Post

In an April 2, 2021 article by Yeganeh Torbati and John Hudson for the Washington Post, “U.S. policy toward sparks conflict between congressional Democrats and Biden,” Deputy Director for Research Amy Hawthorne discusses how the State Department’s annual human rights report has similar findings under Biden as under Trump:

Analysts say the human rights reports released by both the Trump and Biden administrations paint a fairly scathing picture of the Sissi government, but they question whether that will affect policy.

“The differences in the two reports are not very significant overall,” said Amy Hawthorne, research director at the Project on Middle East Democracy. “In the main, the Trump-era reports accurately captured the key aspects of Egypt’s human rights crisis — but the Trump team simply chose to do very, very little about this crisis and instead treated al-Sissi with kid gloves.”

“So what matters, and what we should be watching for, is how the Biden administration responds to Egypt’s human rights disaster beyond this congressionally mandated report,” she added.

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Chandler West / The White House on Flickr

Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu featured in Arab News

Two recent articles from Arab News on the crackdown against the HDP in Turkey feature comments from Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu. In the first, “Crackdown on Turkey’s pro- Kurdish party intensifies after dawn raids,” Tahiroğlu discusses the risks and rewards Turkish president Erdoğan might face by shutting down the HDP:

“Even after all of (President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s authoritarian repression against his political opponents, actually shutting down an opposition party always seemed like a bridge too far,” Merve Tahiroglu, Turkey program coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), told Arab News. “Given that Erdogan himself has suffered from anti-democratic party closures throughout his political career, it may still prove too politically costly for him to pursue the closure of the HDP,” she added.

[…]

But, she said, even the threat of closing down the HDP would benefit Erdogan by driving a wedge in the opposition coalition, forcing politicians to either come out in support of the move, thereby alienating liberal and Kurdish voters, or oppose the move, alienating nationalists.

In the second article, “Opposition lawmaker arrested, dragged from Turkish parliament at dawn,” Tahiroğlu comments on the arrest of a prominent opposition lawmaker in Turkey:

“The Turkish government cannot stand people like Gergerlioğlu who fervently defend human rights and pose an unwavering opposition to its authoritarian tactics,” Merve Tahiroglu, program coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, told Arab News.

“The government is doing to him what it has done to all prominent human rights defenders in Turkey: Using a politicized judiciary to brand him as a terrorist — over a news article that he shared on social media years ago,” she added.

Read the first article here and the second article here.

Photo Credit: People’s Democratic Party on Facebook Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu featured in the Associated Press

In a March 14, 2021, article by Suzan Fraser for the Associated Press, “Call me? US-Turkey reset faces long list of hurdles,” Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu discusses what it might take to repair close relations between the US and Turkey:

Merve Tahiroglu of the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy, said it would be difficult for Erdogan to backtrack on the S-400 “because he made such a big deal about the purchase and what this would mean for Turkey’s geopolitical independence.”

[…]

“For a true reset to happen, the Biden administration needs to see more of a democratization process … that can come in the form of major judicial reforms or by the release of some of the most contentious political figures,” Tahiroglu said.

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Adam Schultz / Official White House on Flickr Advocacy Officer Seth Binder featured in the Guardian

In a February 5 article by Stephanie Kirchgaessner for the Guardian, “Rethink or reset? Joe Biden’s dilemma over ,” Advocacy Officer Seth Binder comments on the contradictions in Biden’s handling of the ODNI report about Jamal Khashoggi’s murder:

Seth Binder, of the Project on Middle Eastern Diplomacy, said the US had sought to send a message that Biden was releasing the report to follow the law, because it had been mandated by Congress, but that it had ultimately shown that Prince Mohammed, sometimes referred to as MBS, could not be punished because he was above the law.

“I also don’t think the administration has explained why we cannot sanction him and [also] not rupture the relationship,” Binder said. “The US could still engage with security officials and other diplomats as we need to, without excusing MBS.”

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Adam Schultz / Official White House on Flickr Advocacy Officer Seth Binder featured in Vox

A March 1 article by Alex Ward for Vox, “How Biden’s best-laid plans for and failed in his first month,” features a quote from Advocacy Officer Seth Binder. Binder comments that Biden’s approach to Saudia Arabia and MBS after the release of the report indicating MBS’s responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is likely to disappoint multiple groups:

On these key foreign policy areas, President Biden therefore hasn’t governed like candidate Biden said he would. That’s invited some criticism of his first month in charge and concern that his choices could leave allies and activists dissatisfied.

“They are trying to thread the needle between competing interests,” said Seth Binder, an advocacy officer at the Project on Middle East Democracy. “Trying to please a broad array of interested parties is likely going to end up frustrating many of them.”

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Adam Schultz / Official White House on Flickr Advocacy Officer Seth Binder interviewed on DW News TV

On Friday, February 26, 2021, Advocacy Officer Seth Binder appeared on Deutsche Welle News TV to discuss the U.S. intelligence report indicating that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi:

What this report shows, clearly, is that there’s overwhelming evidence that the crown prince and that the Saudi regime are responsible, and so the U.S. should abide by its [own] laws and they should be calling them out and they should be holding them accountable; and that includes that they should be sanctioning MBS directly.

Watch the full interview:

Photo Credit: DW Advocacy Officer Seth Binder featured in

In a February 27th article by Ali Harb and Umar A Farooq for Middle East Eye, “Khashoggi murder: Advocates decry US failure to impose sanctions on MBS,” Advocacy Officer Seth Binder says that the Biden administration is trying to have it both ways when it comes to dealing with MBS’s responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi:

“The Biden administration is trying to thread the needle. They want to continue to work with a partner that has committed a heinous act against a US resident, while taking some steps toward accountability,” Seth Binder, advocacy officer at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), told MEE.

“But if human rights is really going to be at the centre of US foreign policy, as the administration has repeatedly stated, then it can’t give murderers a free pass.”

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Lawrence Jackson / Official White House on Flickr