Turkey talks green at COP31 while cracking down on activists

As the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya co-hosts the COP31 climate conference with Australia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using the global spotlight to promote his country’s climate ambitions. But his green image is being challenged at home by environmentalists, who say they face an intensifying government crackdown. The summit opened with a cinematic video highlighting the growing threat of global warming. “When did you decide to look at nature as if it’s not your nature?” a narrator asked during the opening presentation. Addressing world leaders, Erdogan stressed Turkey’s determination to tackle climate change and presented Antalya’s ancient, multicultural history as fitting for its role as host. Three-quarters of world's displaced people 'on frontlines of climate crisis' “At the centre of our civilisations lies respect for nature,” he said. “The earth is a sacred trust that must be protected and guarded. We are a nation that considers even harming an ant a violation of rights, and that embraces the principle of planting the last sapling in your hand even if you know the apocalypse will come tomorrow.” A different reality The COP31 summit gives Erdogan a prominent international stage, but human rights campaigners warn of a very different reality outside the conference halls. Last month, the US-based Human Rights Watch raised the alarm over a widening campaign against Turkey’s environmental movement. The report’s author, Deniz Bayram, said activists face a growing wave of arrests, fines and intimidation. “People told us that when they protested, they faced police violence and abusive tactics by security officers, as well as legal harassment through unfair criminal investigations with no criminal evidence,” Bayram said. She said the authorities had also put pressure on demonstrators through their families. In the eastern Black Sea region, security officers contacted the adult sons of women protesters who lived in other cities and told them to stop their mothers attending further rallies, according to Bayram. “Women told us that they are not really afraid of facing such violence from the authorities, but they are having a hard time with these family matters with their own relatives,” she said. “So these abusive tactics create a chilling effect, preventing people from attending further demonstrations.” Tear gas and court cases Police intervention at environmental protests has become routine across Turkey, where local demonstrations have surged since the government relaxed restrictions on gold and coal mining. Suheyla Dogan, a retired civil engineer who has become a leading voice in protests against gold mines, has repeatedly rallied villagers against mining projects. She said the personal cost of activism was rising sharply. “If we take any direct action, we are punished; they open court cases against us,” said Dogan, who faces four separate legal cases. “At the demonstrations, we have faced a lot of tear gas, water cannon, beatings and so on.” Ahead of a planned demonstration in Antalya during the climate summit, Dogan said, several organisers were detained by police and released a day later. She believes the move was intended to deter people from turning up, even though the rally had not been banned. African push to triple climate adaptation finance left off Cop31 agenda Legal experts warn that a climate of fear is deepening as pre-trial detention becomes standard practice, leaving activists in jail for weeks before their cases are heard, often only to be released later. The government maintains that the right to protest remains protected, but environmental lawyer Ismail Hakki Atal said lawyers defending activists were increasingly being targeted too. Atal represented villagers fighting to protect the Akbelen Forest near the south-western town of Milas, where he alleges that the government-backed conglomerate Limak breached Turkey’s Olive Law by cutting down olive trees and dumping rubble on olive groves. “Because I exposed this in a live news broadcast, police detained me twice within five days, even though I was acting as the villagers’ lawyer,” Atal said. “The ruling AKP has effectively established a judiciary in Turkey capable of having anyone it wishes arrested. The judicial system currently hangs over us like the Sword of Damocles and is used as a stick when necessary.” Retirees on the front line Dogan acknowledged that the mounting pressure was beginning to sap the movement’s strength, particularly among younger people. “People are now more afraid to join us. Villagers are more afraid because if they protest and are taken to prison, they stay there for a long time,” she said. “When we call people on to the streets, they ask: ‘How are you going to protect us if something happens to us?’ Young people who have jobs and children are especially afraid.” World set to breach 1.5C warming limit as UN warns time is running out With fewer people of working age willing to risk their jobs and their freedom, the burden of frontline protest is increasingly falling on retirees such as Dogan. “I am retired, I have my pension, and I don’t have a job to lose,” she said. “Maybe retired people are now more willing to be on the streets than young working people. I see it as my duty; I have to do it.” For now, Turkish environmentalists say they refuse to be silenced. They have vowed to make their voices heard on the sidelines of COP31, as an older generation steps forward to keep the movement alive.