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From Our Own Correspondent
Turkey’s clampdown
00:28:48
The arrest of Istanbul's mayor sparked mass protests and a heavy response by authorities.
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Transcript23 lines
- [00:00]
Narrator
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
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Ray Winstone
Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.
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BBC Reporter
BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello.
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News Anchor
Today at the White House, a press conference with Hyundai executives is interrupted amid revelations about a security lapse in a high level messaging group. We hear from relatives of the Venezuelan detainees who've been deported to El Salvador by Donald Trump after He invoked an 18th century law. In Chuvilla, the village, which is home to the billionaire and founder of the Georgian Dream Party, handouts are plentiful, but elsewhere in Georgia it's a different story. And finally, from South American strongmen to Hollywood superstars who Hard Talk Stephen Sacher reflects on his most memorable encounters over the years. But first, the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul last week and the main rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sparked outrage in Turkey and led to some of the worst unrest the country has seen in a decade. Ekrem Imamolu was detained on corruption charges last Wednesday and then formally charged on the same day he was due to be selected as the 2028 presidential nominee for the Republican People's Party, or CHP. He described his arrest as a black stain on our democracy. More than 1800 protesters had been detained since the protest started, and there's been a crackdown on the media, which also included a BBC correspondent being detained and deported. Emily Wither has been in Istanbul the.
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BBC Reporter
Night after the mayor, Eklem Imamoli, was detained, a cacophony of cutlery and echoed through the hills of my neighborhood. I knew at that moment that frustration at Mr. Imamolu's arrest and subsequent imprisonment was being felt not just on the Istanbul streets, but above them too, in the thousands of apartment blocks that form this city's cluttered and historic skyline. Night after night, in neighborhoods across the city, Turks have cracked open their windows or come onto their balconies to bang pots and pans in protest. In a country where more than 1,800 people have been arrested in relation to the street demonstrations, it is perhaps an understandable, safer form of voicing displeasure. The last time I'd heard that level of kitchen Pan Symphony run through Istanbul's night skies was back in 2019 after the mayoral result that first elected Imamoli had been cancelled. Official results had given Imamoli, the candidate of the opposition chp, a narrow lead over President Erdogan's ACK Party. The win had clearly come as a shock to the government. Both sides claimed victory and the morning after initial results had been announced, the poster on my local bus stop and the billboard over the road read thank you Istanbul, featuring a gleaming Erdogan and his party's candidate. The government later blamed the first result on irregularities and said it would contest a controversially mandated rerun. Another round of voting meant another round of canvassing. And one day when Imamoli was out on his campaign bus, a teenager called Berkay ran a across the highway, fist raised and shouted into the window at Imamoli, everything will be fine. It became Imamoli's slogan. He later addressed huge crowds of supporters, famously taking off his jacket and tie, rolling up his sleeves and calmly telling them, everything will be fine. He went on to win the rerun with an even larger majority. President Erdogan, who had been Istanbul's mayor in the 1990s, would have been well aware of another phrase common to Turkish political discourse. Whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey. His ACT party's loss to the CHP opposition party candidate was a huge blow. And he will have taken note of a young charismatic candidate with broad appeal who had shown no sign of being rattled. Since then, the opposition's CHP popularity has ebbed and flowed. The 2023 presidential election was initially too close to call. President Erdogan ultimately won. He himself remains a charismatic and dominant figure in Turkish politics. In power for 22 years, his Islamic rooted brand of Turkey, first nationalism connects to voters in the country's major cities and Anatolian rural heartlands alike. At the rallies I attended in the run up to the 2023 elections, it was the young who had excitedly mobilised behind the then opposition candidate, 76 year old Kemal Kalichtaawlu. But in the end he was no match for the incumbent. Recent polls have however shown that the younger Imamolu might pose a greater threat to the ruling AK party. And that perhaps explains why pot and pan banging protests and street demonstrations are occurring nightly. Every demonstrator I have spoken to over the last week has told me Imamolu's arrest isn't about choosing a party. They say they are out on the streets to fight for the last gasp of democracy. The independent OSCE labelled the last elections in Turkey free but not fair. However, as several protesters I have spoken to this week say, when the leading opposition candidate is jailed, they worry elections here can no longer even be seen as free. And yet, in this imperfect democracy, election turnout is very high. Turks love to vote. The ballot box has been a place where citizens can freely express themselves without fear or consequence. Meddling in the choice of whose name can be printed on the paper was, for millions, a step too far. Last weekend, around 13 million people came out to vote. In a hastily arranged symbolic vote tables were set up outside my local bakery. Turks joined 1.7 million CHP members in backing Imamolu as their nominee for future elections. He now sits in solitary confinement in a high security prison. Unsurprisingly, one of the messages he's shared on social media is everything will be fine. The teenager Berkay, who coined that famous phrase, is in prison too, awaiting trial. Now a university student, he was charged for protesting. He's become a symbol of a movement which worries that everything here is far from fine.
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News Anchor
Emily Wither the perils of group messaging apps were in plain sight this week after a US Journalist was accidentally added to a group chat of high level US Officials. The topic a planned US Attack on Houthi positions in Yemen. The journalist, Jeff Goldberg of the Atlantic magazine, opted to leave the chat before publishing what was deemed less sensitive operational material. The White House mustered its best efforts to play down the security breach, with President Trump describing it as a witch hunt. Berndt du Bussmann was in a White House press conference shortly after the story broke.
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White House Correspondent
As I walked into the White House's Cabinet room, I immediately caught sight of Donald Trump, and he looked very much like a man in charge. He was wearing a purple tie and was leaning forward in his chair, a stern look on his face as he patiently waited for the press to enter the room before he began speaking. On Monday morning, around the same time, the Atlantic magazine published a piece that would send shock waves throughout the U.S. 25 members of his cabinet sat around a huge mahogany table with him. To his left, Attorney General Pam Bondi reclining comfortably to his right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio studiously taking notes. At the end of the table was Elon Musk, hands clasped in front of his face under a red MAGA hat. For the next 48 minutes, Trump held court, listing accomplishments, answering questions, and commandingly calling on his cabinet members to tout their achievements. He looked like he was on top of the world in his element. Things would be very different just a few hours later, when Trump faced questions on how and why members of his cabinet appeared to have invited a journalist, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, into a private Signal chat in which they discussed impending US Airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen, an embarrassing and for now inexplicable security breach at the highest rung of the US Government. When he was first asked about the incident, almost instantly dubbed Signal Gate by the US Media, Trump was in the bright yellow Roosevelt Room of the White House, standing in front of the famous Rough Rider painting of a triumphant looking Teddy Roosevelt atop a horse. To his left and right were smiling Louisiana lawmakers and well dressed Japanese auto executives gathered, they thought, for what would be a celebration of Hyundai investment in the US A single question about Signal Gate, however, seemed to suck the energy out of the room and appeared to put the president on the back foot. I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of the Atlantic, he replied to the press, seemingly caught by surprise. You're telling me about it. For the first time over the next hours and days, the White House scrambled to mount a defense. The information shared, it insisted, was not classified and had no impact on what so far have been successful strikes in Yemen. In strongly worded press releases and a tense and crowded press briefing, the White House claimed the whole scandal was manufactured to distract from Trump's accomplishments. The explanations were not enough for Democrats such as Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, who said the embarrassment was utterly unprofessional during a tense exchange with CIA Director John Ratcliffe in an intelligence committee hearing. There has been no recognition of the gravity of this error, he said. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt attacked Goldberg directly, calling him an anti Trump hater and trying to cast doubt on his journalistic abilities. The administration's denials, however, have done little to stop the embarrassment, particularly after the Atlantic published more complete versions of the messages, which showed that sensitive military details were shared hours before the strikes took place, at a time when American aviators and sailors were still in harm's way in the skies and waters of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, cracks have begun to show in what has otherwise been a tight knit team that was still riding a wave after Trump's electoral victory last year. Senior Republicans have called for hearings, and Marco Rubio and others have acknowledged a big, big mistake. Having flooded the zone with initiative since the inauguration, the White House was losing control of the narrative. So far, nobody has been able to produce any explanation why or how the journalist was included in a chat that was clearly meant to take place away from public eyes or at least not in a civilian application that's only as secure as the person who is using it. It's a blunder that has left many within the US Security apparatus scratching their heads and providing fodder for an endless stream of jokes and memes. And even as polls suggest that a majority of Americans understood the seriousness of the breach, some have told me they are increasingly irritated by the administration's efforts to smooth over the foul up. Soon after the news broke, I spoke to a former high ranking official at the Pentagon who spent years in the murky world of espionage and clandestine operations. You don't need to be a member of the military to know that this information is exactly what the enemy would want to know, he told me. It clearly puts our military members at risk. He seemed puzzled and exasperated. This is a national security issue, he told me. Like all national security issues, it should not be partisan. But in the United States of today, it feels as if everything is hyper partisan, another chance to argue and for divides to grow.
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News Anchor
Bent de Busman Next we're in El Salvador, where earlier this month more than 200 Venezuelans were deported by US officials under the 1798 Alien Enemies act, which allows for the expulsion of foreign citizens with little due process. The move has prompted an outcry in the US And Venezuela, with several family members of the detainees insisting the US Allegations of gang membership are false. Over the last few days, the US Secretary for Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, went to the controversial mega prison where the detainees are being held and thanked the president for bringing our terrorists here and incarcerating them. Back in Washington, the legality of the US Administration's move is under heavy scrutiny. Will Grant has been in San Salvador.
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Narrator
The video call connected and Gertrudis Pineda's image swam into focus. Even down the phone, the intolerable heat of Sulia, a state in western Venezuela, was self evident. Gertrudis was dressed in a light cotton top, a thin film of perspiration across her face, her thick glasses occasionally sliding down her nose. I have been to Sulia many times and remember its brutal temperatures well. But as I spoke to Gertrudis from the comfort of an air conditioned hotel room in El Salvador, I was closer to her son Oscar as he languished in the belly of the harshest prison in the Americas. Oscar's removal from the United States under a little used 18th century law has pushed Gertrudis to the brink of a breakdown, she says. She burst into tears before I'd even asked a question. I don't understand why they've sent him there. He's not a bad boy, she sobbed. He just went in search of the American dream and now he's trapped in this nightmare, she said, composing herself a little. This nightmare is the Terrorism Confinement center, or secot, a supermax facility built to house some of El Salvador's most hardened gang members and the cornerstone of President Nayib Bukele's National Security Policy. Since he unveiled the seccot, thousands of members of the MS.13 and the 18th street gangs have been transferred to the prison the Bukele administration ensured. Images of shackled and shaven headed youths with heavily tattooed torsos and faces being corralled into their cells by hooded guards with machine guns were seen around the world. Now Oscar is in there too. He too has had his head shaved, been made to wear the white prison trunks, and thrown into a cell with metal bunks and no natural light. But he's not Salvadoran, he is Venezuelan, says Gertrudis. So what this president has done is kidnap our children, she accused. Oscar's only crime, says his family, was to have crossed illegally into the US where he worked laying carpets in apartments in Texas. The Trump administration says the opposite, arguing that he was part of Trenda Aragua, a Venezuelan gang which President Trump recently reclassified as a foreign foreign terrorist organisation. All 238 Venezuelans flown south had been carefully vetted, the White House said at the time. A US federal judge ordered the planes transporting the men to turn round, an order which was apparently ignored. An appeals court has now upheld this temporary injunction on any further deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador. Meanwhile, in San Salvador, the men's fate is partly in the hands of Jaime Ortega, a sharply dressed lawyer in a striped tie and a Salvadoran flag pin on his lapel. This case is very sad and unprecedented in our country, he tells me. We've only seen this in times of slavery, when people were moved between place and place for money. Mr. Ortega claims he's been employed directly by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a man ideologically opposed to Nayib Bukele, to secure the Venezuelans release. People constantly tell him it's a fool's errand. He says that he's dealing with a president who arguably three presidents who consider themselves the ultimate authority in their country and believe their nation's laws and judiciary should bend to the executive's will. But there is still rule of law here, there's still a constitution and freedoms and rights which are protected under law, he insists. As such the authorities must answer his demands, beginning with a petition of habeas corpus, he lodged with the Supreme Court. The next day marked the third anniversary of President Bukele's nationwide gang crackdown, or state of exception, under which certain constitutional norms have been suspended. The supposedly temporary measure has brought peace to many once dangerous gang controlled communities. But in the shade of the Plaza Jose Marti, a smattering of families gathered carrying photographs of their loved ones, all of whom have been incarcerated under the policy and whose relatives say are innocent of any gang crimes. One woman carried the Venezuelan flag, others the blue and white of El Salvador. Fatima Gomez, whose son Epifanio was detained in May 2022, expressed heartfelt empathy for Gertrudis in Venezuela. Despite the distance between them, she said, her suffering splits my soul in two. The two women reminded me a little of each other country folk facing tough economic circumstances and huge challenges in taking on the authorities, with no word on their children's well being from inside the same prison. The difference is, of course, for GERTRUDIS it's been 13 days. For Fatima, three years, will grant.
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Ray Winstone
Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are gonna come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.
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News Anchor
Next we're in Georgia, where the parliamentary election last October saw the return to power of the Georgian Dream Party. Months of protests ensued amid claims by the pro Western president. The results were totally falsified. Tensions mounted further after a decision by the government to put on hold EU accession negotiations that are widely supported in Georgia. Reyhan Dimitri has been to the village, which was the home of the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream Party, Bidzina Ivanishvali, and where the party has a strong support base.
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Georgia Correspondent
In our village, every newlywed couple gets a present of US$3,000, boasted Timuri Capanaze, a round faced middle aged history teacher with a kindly smile. Timuri lives in Chorvila, a village in northwest Georgia. There must be no single people left here then, I replied. We laughed. But for many Georgians, the influence Czorvila's benefactor has on the country's politics is no laughing matter. The village is the birthplace of Bidzina Ivanishvili Georgia's richest man. The 69 year old is now the most powerful man in the country. Ivanishvili made his fortune in Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed. Eventually, he returned home to Georgia in the early 2000s. That's when the fortunes of this small town started to turn. There are no potholes on the roads of Ciorvila. The local hospital was renovated, two churches built, and the state school where the billionaire once studied now has its own swimming pool and basketball court. Every home has a shiny green or red roof. It's no wonder many people here adore their most successful son. You can't even describe how many good things he made for people. He's just a great man and we wish for many men like him, gushes another Chorvila resident, Mamiya Macchiwarayani. There was nothing without him and now we have everything, he concludes. Temuri, the history teacher, adds that he personally was given a refrigerator, TV set, gas stove, cash, 200 Georgian Lari every month for over five years. Timuri explained that the payments were made to most residents of Ciorvila through a construction company with links to Mr. Ivanishvili's charity foundation. But beyond Ciorvila, not all Georgian citizens are reaping the benefits. In the capital Tbilisi, there have been non stop protests for nearly four months after the government won elections widely seen as rigged in late October. It then suspended talks with the eu EU on Georgia's future membership. Many protesters think Pitzina Ivanishvili is personally responsible for moving the country away from Europe towards Putin's Russia. An anti corruption watchdog says the billionaire's influence pervades all government institutions, including the security services. For example, the country's interior minister and another high ranking security official were Mr. Ivanishvili's personal bodyguards. In the past, police violence during the protests was well documented. David Deutschvili, a softly spoken man in his 50s with a shock of silvery blond hair, is the director of Tbilisi's new theatre. He told me about the detention of one of his rising stars, a young actor called Andro Chichinazze, charged with organizing protests along with 10 other people. Andro faces up to seven years in jail. In response, the theater has stopped all performances. David says the charges are absurd as the accused only met each other on the day of their court hearing. This generation was raised with different values. They have no fear, they're open minded, David told me. And this government is trying to break them, he went on. David told me how what was happening reminded him of life under the Soviet Union. Opinion polls have shown repeatedly that Georgians see their country's future in Europe. Seeking integration with the EU is even written into the country's constitution. Currently, support for Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream party stands at 30%, according to independent pollsters. This support is particularly high in rural conservative areas, where the government's main propaganda message about maintaining peace amidst Western pressure to involve Georgia in Ukraine's war is well received. Another common anti Western narrative is that this government is preserving Georgia's traditional values. In urban areas, particularly among the younger generation, these messages are seen as being pro Kremlin numbers at the Night Light demonstrations have now dwindled after the Georgian Dream Party introduced repressive new laws penalizing protesters with hefty fines and prison sentences. For those continuing to protest, a new chant at rallies is bolomde, meaning until the end, this country has been all about the wishes, priorities and comfort zone of one man, said David. But the truth is on our side.
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News Anchor
Reihan, Dimitri and finally this week, the interview programme HardTalk will go off air for good. For almost three decades, Hard Talk has maintained a tradition of one to one long form interviews with the powerful. The roll call of guests reads like an archive of contemporary history Gorbachev, Mandela, Perez, Trump, Chavez and many more. For the last 19 years, Hard Talk's main presenter has been Stephen Sacher. Here he shares some of his most memorable encounters.
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Stephen Sackur
Welcome to Hard Talk. I'm Stephen Sacher. Those six words have launched more than 3,000 interrogations over the past two decades. Every time the red recording light went on, a little knot of tension tightened in my stomach. Would the next 25 minutes be revelatory or dismally dull? Whether it was a giant of geopolitics like Mikhail Gorbachev or a showbiz diva like Gwyneth Paltrow, every interview felt rich in opportunity and jeopardy. 25 minutes to ask questions. Nothing off limits. Truly a privilege not to be wasted. My favourite encounter dates back some 15 years. I found myself chatting to the American film director Oliver Stone. He asked me if there were any big names I was desperate to interview, but who proved ungettable. I paused. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, I said, knowing that Stone had a soft spot for Latin American revolutionaries. Stone smiled. I think I can help, he said. Chavez is a friend of mine. A couple of weeks later, my phone rang. Stephen, it's Oliver. I'm in Caracas with Hugo. He says he'll do it, but you have to come now. So it was that a couple of days later, the Hard Talk Team trooped into the Miraflores Presidential palace in Caracas for one of the very few interviews Comandante Chavez, proud socialist and anti imperialist, ever gave to a Western media outlet. We set up in a grand, high ceilinged room, and ours weren't the only cameras there. Chavez had brought his own film crew along too, filming us, filming him, and it felt like I'd been pitched into a prize fight. Chavez was a barrel chested bull of a man, full of charisma, and he knew it. I asked him about the arrest of independent journalists, the repression of opposition political voices, and evidence of blatant interference in the judicial system. He grew increasingly agitated. A presidential finger was jabbed close to my face. The strain became evident in the interpreter's breathless delivery. I'm surprised, shouted Chavez, that the BBC has sent such an idiot to interview the President. Much of what we learn from interviews isn't in the words themselves. Body language, tone, the human connection, or lack of it, are all part of the story. Chavez, it turned out, was a man of enormous ego and no little charm. Days after our encounter, he was presenting his own show, Hola Presidente, on state tv. I've just seen this journalist from London, he told his viewers with a smile. He has a show, Dialogo Duro. Hard talk, muy fuerte, very strong. He threw his best pitches at me, but I hit him out of the park. One of my tensest exchanges was with Russia's veteran Foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow back in 2018. At the time, Russia's military support for Syria's dictator Bashar Al Assad was prompting calls in the west for a military response. As I cited evidence of Assad's use of chemical weapons, Lavrov's tone veered towards cold fury. Relations with the west were worse than during the Cold War, he said, accusing the US and its allies of a genocide by sanctions driven by Russophobia. When I persisted with questions about Russia's complicity in the use of barrel bombs on Syrian civilians, he berated my lack of the usual British manners. And at the end, when I thanked him for being on hard talk, there was stony silence. Then he muttered, that was bullshit, and stalked off. Interviewees reveal themselves in all sorts of different ways. Sometimes the hard in. Hard talk has been less political, more personal. It's been about individuals confronting their demons with almost unbearable honesty. I'm thinking of Alan Alt, the former head of corrections in the U.S. state of Georgia who oversaw the execution of condemned prisoners when the electric chair was still in use. He quit when he could no longer live with the guilt inside him. It got to feel like murder. He told me it was premeditated murder. I struggle with it every day. For the past two decades, it has been my enormous privilege to ask questions of those in power and those who have stood up to power. I've seen the best and the worst of humanity up close. And one thing I know as disinformation and media manipulation make it ever harder to distinguish truth from lies. There has never been a greater need for journalism that holds power to account. Asking the right questions really matters now more than ever.
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News Anchor
Stephen Sacker. And that's all for today. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [29:21]
Dr. Van Tulliken Twins
Hi, we're the Van Tulliken, the identical twin Dr. Van Tullikens. Chris and Zaand in what's up Docs. We're diving into the messy, complicated world of health and well being. We are living in the middle of what I would call a therapeutic revolution. But it can sometimes be hard to know what's really best for us. Do I need to take a testosterone supplement? How can I fix my creaky knees? Why do I get hangry?
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White House Correspondent
It's.
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Dr. Van Tulliken Twins
Is organic food actually better for me? We are going to be your guides through the confusion. We'll talk to experts in the field and argue about what we've learned and share what we've learned and maybe disagree.
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Georgia Correspondent
A fair bit too.
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Stephen Sackur
No, we won't.
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White House Correspondent
What's up?
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Dr. Van Tulliken Twins
Docs from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.
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Ray Winstone
Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are gonna come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.