# COMMENTARY: Turkey arrests 225 people before the NATO summit — and its allies look away

> In the night of June 22–23, 2026, Turkish authorities arrested at least 209 people in Ankara. Lawyers, activists, academics, journalists — including

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Commentary
- Published: 2026-07-01
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/commentaire-la-turquie-arrete-225-personnes-avant-le-sommet-otan-et-ses-allies-r

## Introduction: when NATO turns a blind eye to its own house

### A night of June 22–23 that says a great deal

In the night of **June 22–23, 2026**, Turkish authorities arrested at least **209 people** in **Ankara**. Lawyers, activists, academics, journalists — including **Yıldız Tar**, a journalist and **LGBT** rights activist — and **14 members of the TEMA foundation**, an environmental organisation specialising in reforestation. Dozens of others were placed in pre-trial detention. The official reason invoked by the **Ankara** prosecutor's office: "deciphering the actions and activities of terrorist organisations." The real reason? The **NATO summit** in **Ankara**, scheduled for **July 7–8, 2026**, was approaching. And the Turkish government wanted clean streets.

According to data published by **Human Rights Watch** on **June 25, 2026**, a total of **225 people** were arrested in this operation. Of those **225**, the courts placed **178 in pre-trial detention**, put **34 under house arrest**, and released only **6**. The rest languished in a legal grey zone. And the day before the mass arrest, the Governor of **Ankara** had already banned all public demonstrations, the distribution of leaflets, and the display of banners — from **June 28 to July 10** — deploying **70,000 police officers**. This is not security. It is political sterilisation.

### The documented silence of the allies

**Reuters**, in an article published on **July 1, 2026**, documents it soberly: **NATO allies** chose to remain silent about this wave of repression. The relationship with **Ankara**, described as "transactional" by anonymously cited diplomats, takes precedence over any human rights consideration. **Turkey**, NATO's second-largest army, controls the **Bosphorus Strait**, hosts essential American military bases, and plays an intermediary role in negotiations with **Russia**. In other words: it is too valuable to criticise. This calculation is understandable. It is also morally corrosive.

**Benjamin Ward**, deputy director for **Europe and Central Asia** at **Human Rights Watch**, did not mince his words: "**The abusive use of anti-terrorism laws to organise mass arrests and silence people on the eve of a NATO summit runs counter to the Alliance's founding values.**" He demanded the immediate release of detainees and called on **NATO** to insist that peaceful expression be permitted. His voice echoes in a void. Allied capitals, busy preparing their speeches on democracy and freedom, said nothing.

*I cannot look at this silence without unease. NATO is a military alliance, certainly — but it has always claimed to be a community of values too. What Turkey is doing in Ankara is the exact opposite of those values. And the fact that no one says so out loud should make us all collectively ashamed.*

## The context: Turkey in 2026, a state in authoritarian drift

### Imamoglu in prison, CHP decapitated, media muzzled

The repression preceding the summit does not emerge from nowhere. It sits within a longer trajectory. The mayor of **Istanbul** and the main opposition candidate for the presidency, **Ekrem Imamoglu**, was arrested and indicted — effectively excluded from Turkish political life by court order. The leadership of the main opposition party, the **CHP** (Republican People's Party), was ousted by court injunction. Dozens of journalists face abusive prosecutions for critical reporting or social media posts. At the time of writing, at least **21 journalists** are incarcerated in **Turkey**.

In June 2026, Turkish authorities ordered the blocking of **X (formerly Twitter)** accounts of **LGBT** and women's rights organisations — including organisations providing services to victims of domestic violence. These blocks came as **LGBT** groups were preparing gatherings for **Pride Month**. Journalists from recognised independent media — **Cumhuriyet**, **Sozcu**, **T24** — were denied accreditation for the **NATO summit**, according to **Reuters** on **June 25, 2026**. Dozens of reporters were excluded from coverage of an event taking place in their own capital.

### Terrorism as a universal label

The legal tool of Turkish repression is always the same: **anti-terrorism laws**. Broad, vague, infinitely extensible, they allow the arrest of a **TEMA** foundation tree planter as readily as a lawyer defending an activist or a journalist documenting injustice. The terrorism designation in **Turkey** has become a tool of political management — a means of criminalising dissent without passing through the category of "repression." **Amnesty International** had denounced this dynamic well before the summit: it described it as an "unjustifiable attack" on freedom of assembly and expression.

One man died during the operations of **June 22–23** — shot by police as a suspected link to the **Islamic State**. **Human Rights Watch** called for an independent investigation into the circumstances of his death. This demand, like the others, will likely go unanswered as long as **NATO's** allies prefer discretion.

*The terrorism label has become the universal solvent of Turkish politics. No matter what you do — plant trees, defend prisoners, photograph an arrest — if it inconveniences the government, you are a terrorist. And no one in Brussels says a word.*

## The Western calculation: pragmatism or a surrender of values?

### Turkey is too valuable to criticise

The reasoning behind Western silence is transparent. **Turkey** controls the **Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits**, the strategic lock between the **Black Sea** and the **Mediterranean**. It hosts **Incirlik** Air Base, used by American forces. It is the only **NATO** country to maintain active diplomatic relations with **Moscow** while remaining in the Alliance — an intermediary role that enabled, among other things, the **Black Sea grain transit agreements in 2022–2023** and negotiations on Ukrainian prisoners of war. **Ankara** is, in diplomatic parlance, "indispensable."

This pragmatism has a history. **NATO** has always had to accommodate members who did not fully respect its declared values. **Greece** under the colonels, **Portugal** under **Salazar**, **Turkey** after the military coups of **1960**, **1971**, and **1980**. The Alliance's logic has always been that the strategic umbrella takes precedence over the democratic agenda. But there is a threshold beyond which this calculation becomes an endorsement. And arresting **225 people** to clean the streets before a summit crosses that threshold.

### What silence says to autocrats the world over

The problem with Western silence goes beyond **Turkey**. It sends a global message: democracies silence their values when strategic interests come into play. This message is read in **Moscow**, in **Beijing**, in **Tehran**. It is read by every government that monitors how Westerners react — or do not react — to human rights violations among their allies. And what they see is considerable room for manoeuvre. If **Turkey**, a **NATO** member, can arrest **225 opponents** without triggering the slightest public reaction from its allies, what signal does that send to regimes that do not enjoy this strategic protection?

The question is not to punish **Turkey** or threaten its place in the **Alliance**. The question is to say, out loud, in front of cameras, what is happening. **Benjamin Ward** said it. **HRW** said it. **Amnesty** said it. Democratic governments stayed silent. And this collective silence carries a cost — for the moral credibility of the **West**, for the **178 people** in pre-trial detention in **Ankara**, and for all those who still believe that democracies keep their promises.

*When democracies stay silent on mass arrests among their allies, they validate everyone who says their freedom rhetoric is empty. I have no simple solution to offer. But I refuse to pretend this silence is acceptable.*

## NATO and its founding contradictions

### A military alliance that also claims to be democratic

**NATO** was founded in **1949** around two axes: collective defence against Soviet aggression, and commitment to democratic values enshrined in its preamble. These two axes have always been in tension. Collective defence requires reliable allies, not necessarily model democracies. And since **1949**, the **Alliance** has regularly chosen strategic reliability over democratic consistency. But there is a difference between tolerating imperfections and endorsing systemic regression.

What **Turkey** under President **Erdogan** represents in 2026 is more than an imperfection: it is a deliberate slide toward a model of governance in which opposition is criminalised, independent media muzzled, and public gatherings banned on demand. In this context, hosting a **NATO summit** in **Ankara** without uttering a single reservation about the conditions under which it is held sends a powerful message — the wrong one.

### Ukraine is watching, and it understands

There is a cruel irony in this picture. **Ukraine** has been fighting since **2022** for its right to exist as a democracy. Its soldiers are dying for an ideal that many others in this same **West** they defend seem ready to sideline the moment strategic interests enter the frame. **Zelensky**, who aspires to join **NATO**, must watch the treatment afforded to Turkish dissidents and ask himself: exactly what Alliance would he be joining? An Alliance of democracies — or an alliance of naked geopolitics?

This question is not rhetorical. It shapes the long-term legitimacy of **NATO** as a political project. If the **Alliance** cannot hold its member allies to a minimal standard of respect for fundamental rights, it loses what distinguishes it from other purely transactional security pacts. And that distinction — that moral surplus — is precisely what has allowed it to survive **75 years** of crises.

*Zelensky is fighting to join NATO. But the NATO convening in Ankara in July 2026 accepted without a word the caging of 178 people in its host city. That contradiction cannot be resolved with speeches about democracy.*

## What the Ankara summit reveals about the Alliance in 2026

### Underlying tensions: Trump, Erdogan, and the future of the Alliance

The **Ankara summit** of **July 7–8, 2026** is taking place against a backdrop of multiple tensions within the **Alliance**. **Donald Trump**, back in the **White House**, has repeatedly reminded European allies that they must shoulder a greater share of the defence burden. He has called some members "free riders" on American security. In this context, **NATO's** ability to impose governance standards on its members is even weaker than usual — because the agenda is dominated by defence budgets and cost-sharing, not human rights.

President **Erdogan**, for his part, knows exactly how to leverage his position. He negotiates his support for **NATO** candidacies — as he did for **Sweden** and **Finland** — against concessions on bilateral issues. He plays both sides: formal ally of the **West**, commercial partner of **Russia**, self-proclaimed mediator of regional conflicts. This ambiguity gives him enormous leverage — and makes him very difficult to challenge publicly.

### 70,000 police: a staging, not a security measure

The deployment of **70,000 police officers** in **Ankara** for the summit is, in itself, a message. It says: this city is under control. It says: no one will come to disrupt the official narrative. It tells accredited journalists — those who were authorised, not the **Cumhuriyet** and **Sozcu** reporters who were excluded — that they will cover what the government chooses to show them. It is a perfect staging of the modern police state: no visible truncheons on television, but dissidents have been in cells for two weeks.

**Amnesty International** denounced this apparatus as an "unjustifiable attack" on freedom of assembly. The Governor of **Ankara** decreed a ban on all public demonstrations from **June 28 to July 10** — twelve days of total prohibition in the capital of a country of **85 million people**. And no allied capital officially protested. Not even for form's sake.

*70,000 police officers for a summit that talks about democracy. The dissonance is so glaring it would be comical — if 178 people were not in prison during that time.*

## What silence says: the moral cost of pragmatism

### When complicity becomes routine

There is a threshold, in the relationship between democracies and their authoritarian allies, where silence ceases to be discretion and becomes a form of complicity. This threshold is never crossed clearly, never officially. It is crossed drop by drop, arrest by arrest, journalist exclusion by journalist exclusion. And one day, looking at the whole, one finds that democracies have slowly normalised practices they claim to condemn in their adversaries. **Russia** imprisons journalists: global scandal. **Turkey** imprisons **21**: polite silence. The difference is the NATO badge.

This double standard has real consequences. It weakens Western credibility in international forums where human rights are debated. It gives ammunition to Russian and Chinese propaganda, which quickly points to the contradictions of democracies. And it betrays the thousands of Turks — **journalists, lawyers, activists, teachers** — who resist, day by day, an authoritarian drift, hoping that their Western allies will not abandon them. These people exist. And they see this silence.

### The limits of the transactional

The transactional relationship with **Turkey** has a logic. It also has limits. By constantly making concessions on values to preserve strategic interests, Western democracies risk draining the meaning from the very structures they defend. **NATO** is not only a military defence pact: it is also — or at least it was — a community of states sharing fundamental values. If one allows this dimension to erode without reaction, the result is a **purely military Alliance**, without a moral compass, guided solely by the calculus of immediate interests. That would be a victory for **Putin**, who has always dreamed of seeing democracies betray themselves.

**Turkey** plays this tension expertly. It knows its allies need it. It uses that to push the limits. And every time allies fall silent before a new wave of repression, the bar shifts a little further. In **2026**, that bar now stands at **225 arrests before a summit**, with zero reaction. Where will it stand in ten years, if nothing changes?

*There is no transactional relationship without morality — or rather, when the transactional crushes morality, it ends up destroying the value of the relationship itself. Ankara's allies should bear that in mind.*

## The organisations that spoke when governments stayed silent

### HRW, Amnesty: the counter-power of NGOs

In this governmental silence, **non-governmental organisations** played their traditional role: speaking truth when diplomats keep their mouths shut. **Human Rights Watch** published its report on **June 25, 2026**, documenting the arrests with precision: names, professions, dates, court proceedings. **Amnesty International** described the crackdown as "unjustifiable." These organisations have no armed divisions or diplomatic levers — but they have the credibility of rigorous testimony, and that is precious.

The problem is that their influence on democratic governments has diminished. In the current political environment, dominated by the rise of populism, hybrid threats, and a security obsession, **HRW** and **Amnesty** reports are more easily ignored than they were twenty years ago. Governments know that media coverage will be brief, that public opinion will move on, and that strategic allies — **Turkey** foremost among them — will still be there tomorrow. That is the cynicism of our age, and it is thriving.

### The excluded journalists: censorship by accreditation

The denial of accreditation to journalists from **Cumhuriyet**, **Sozcu**, and **T24** deserves particular attention. These three publications are among the few independent media still active in **Turkey**, resisting constant pressure. Excluding them from the **NATO summit** in their own capital is not a logistical detail: it is an openly political form of censorship. And the fact that foreign delegations did not publicly demand the presence of these media — or at least did not make that demand public — says much about the state of press freedom as a diplomatic priority in **2026**.

A journalist excluded from a summit in their own city, for political reasons, with the silent endorsement of twenty-nine allied democracies: that is the true balance sheet of Western diplomacy in **Ankara** that week. Official communiqués will speak of unity, solidarity, deterrence. They will not mention **Yıldız Tar** in detention, nor the **TEMA** foundation reforesters who planted no trees this month.

*A free press is the last bulwark against abuses of power — including among allies. To let it be excluded without protest is to accept that the summit takes place in a theatre whose backstage has been cleaned out. That is not NATO. That is stagecraft.*

## What Ukraine should take away from the Ankara spectacle

### A NATO candidacy facing the Alliance's hypocrisy

**Zelensky** wants to join **NATO**. He has repeated it in every speech, at every summit. **Ukraine** meets conditions that **Turkey** no longer meets: free elections maintained even in wartime, a pluralist press working under bombardment, a civil society of remarkable vitality. And yet it is **Ankara** at the table, and **Kyiv** knocking at the door. This irony has a practical dimension: it tells **Ukrainians** that NATO membership does not depend solely on democratic excellence. It depends on the geopolitical calculation of existing members. That calculation can change. But it does not change by magic: it changes under pressure.

This is why what happens in **Ankara** in July 2026 should be read by **Kyiv** as a warning, not a model. **Ukraine** does not want to join an Alliance that looks the other way when its members arrest reforesters. It wants to join an **Alliance of values** — and for that to be possible, this Alliance must first recover its own. These are two linked battles. Refusing to see them as such is to court a future disappointment.

### Pressure as the only language understood

**Human rights organisations** have lent their voice. The independent media that managed to cover the events did their job. One question remains open: will a coalition of democratic governments ever say publicly to **Ankara** that this level of repression is unacceptable? Not buried in a communiqué between twenty paragraphs, but clearly, at the press conference, in front of cameras? The answer for now is no. But precedents exist — the **European Union** has, in the past, been capable of conditioning trade relations on advances in fundamental rights. That mechanism is not dead. It is simply dormant.

**Turkey** knows exactly what it is doing. Each arrest is a test of its allies' tolerance. **225 people** arrested, zero public reaction: the measurement has been taken. Next time, the number could be higher. That is how red lines disappear — not by official decision, but by silent erosion.

*Ukraine deserves a NATO that keeps its promises. For now, it is watching an Alliance that bends before **Erdogan** with a smile. That spectacle gives it no confidence — and it would be right to have none.*

## Conclusion: an Alliance that must look in the mirror

### Values are not optional

I am not asking **NATO** to expel **Turkey**. I am not asking its members to sever diplomatic relations with **Ankara**. I am asking for something simpler, and harder at the same time: the truth. To say publicly, in the name of allied democracies, that mass arrests on the eve of a summit are unacceptable. That denying accreditation to independent media goes against the **Alliance's** values. That silence is itself a form of complicity.

This statement is possible. It would not destroy the **Alliance**. It would not endanger **Incirlik** Air Base or control of the **Bosphorus**. Democratic governments have mechanisms for saying uncomfortable things to their allies while maintaining functional relationships. What they lack is the political will to do so. And this absence of will, in 2026, before a **Turkey** that incarcerates its opponents in its own capital in front of world cameras, is a moral capitulation that should not pass without a word.

### The 178 people in cells deserve to have their names spoken

The war in **Ukraine** brought the defence of democracies back to the top of the agenda. It showed what indifference to authoritarianism costs — in Ukrainian lives, in destruction, in the displacement of millions. That lesson should inform our gaze on what is happening in **Turkey**. The **178 people** placed in pre-trial detention in **Ankara** in June 2026 are not war victims — but they are victims of the same principle: that a power can crush opposition when it judges its political survival demands it. And that the democracies around it prefer to stay silent.

The **NATO summit in Ankara**, **July 7–8, 2026**, will produce communiqués, handshakes, and photos of smiling leaders. In a few days, **Yıldız Tar** may still be in prison. **Cumhuriyet** journalists will not have covered the event in their own capital. And the allies, for their part, will speak of unity and freedom. That is the paradox that slowly kills the credibility of the **West** — and it deserved to be named.

*Ankara's balance sheet cannot be reduced to official photographs. It also amounts to **178 pre-trial detentions**, journalists excluded from their own capital, and the chosen silence of democracies that should have spoken. That silence — I refused to contribute to it.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Human Rights Watch — Türkiye: Crackdown Ahead of NATO Summit — June 25, 2026](https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/06/25/turkiye-crackdown-ahead-of-nato-summit)

- [Reuters — Dozens of Turkish journalists denied accreditation to NATO summit — June 25, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/dozens-turkish-journalists-denied-accreditation-nato-summit-ankara-media-says-2026-06-25/)

- [Reuters — NATO allies have grown silent on rights concerns in Turkey — July 1, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/nato-allies-have-grown-silent-on-rights-concerns-turkey-2026-07-01/)

### Secondary sources

- [India Today — NATO Summit Ankara: Turkiye massive security, Trump, alliance tensions — July 1, 2026](https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/nato-summit-ankara-turkiye-massive-security-trump-alliance-tensions-ptag-2938119-2026-07-01)

- [Times Now — Inside Turkey's crackdown on dissent ahead of NATO summit — June 2026](https://www.timesnownews.com/world/inside-turkeys-crackdown-on-dissent-ahead-of-nato-summit-article-154780637)

- [ZeroHedge — Turkey bans protests across many provinces ahead of major NATO summit — June 2026](https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/turkey-bans-protests-across-many-provinces-ahead-major-nato-summit)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/commentaire-la-turquie-arrete-225-personnes-avant-le-sommet-otan-et-ses-allies-r