More than 10,000 people, according to the organizers, have taken to the streets of Antalya this Saturday to denounce the deterioration of the climate on a global scale and demand respect for human rights, coinciding with the celebration in the Turkish city of the 31st UN Conference on Climate Change (COP31 or Climate Summit), despite a large police deployment.
"For a long time there had not been a demonstration in Turkey with this level of participation," a spokesperson for the organizing committee, Nil Ormanli, highlighted in statements to the news agency DPA.
The march was called by numerous Turkish organizations and had the backing of trade unions, opposition parties, and international groups. The authorities authorized the protest in a country where bans on mass gatherings are frequent, although the protesters had to submit their banners to police checks before joining the route, of approximately one kilometer, between Aydin Kanza Park and Republic Square.
Among the attendees was the German State Secretary for Culture, Claudia Roth, who called for restraint from the Turkish security forces. "There should be no assaults or detentions. I can only warn you," she said, while defending the mobilization as "an essential part" of any climate summit.
In recent months, raids have been carried out against LGTBI associations and demonstrations have been banned during the NATO summit held in Ankara last July, a context that has also shaped the Antalya protest.
Another German activist, Luisa Neubauer, linked to the Fridays for Future movement, explained that particularly controversial slogans had been avoided to avoid putting local activists at risk. "The machinery of repression works very well," she pointed out with reference to the police checks and warnings from the authorities.
Even so, the protesters chanted critical slogans such as "Shoulder to shoulder against fascism" or "The day will come when the AKP will have to answer to the people," in reference to the Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
One of the participants questioned that Turkey should be the host of the climate summit despite the environmental impact resulting from the use of coal in the country, describing as "tragicomic" that this government should be in charge of hosting the event.
In parallel to the protest, a Popular Climate Summit is being held with the participation of hundreds of Turkish and international civil society groups. One of the coordinators, Süheyla Dogan, has indicated that the objective is to make room for Turkish experts and for groups excluded from the official negotiations to address key issues such as environmental degradation, democratic quality, or the transition toward a fossil fuel-free model.
Dogan has also criticized the Turkish government’s energy and environmental policy, which she accuses of ignoring the protection of Mount Ida and of continuing to expand coal-fired power plants.
The climate summit will continue until next November 20 and seeks to strengthen existing commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as increase climate financing aimed at developing countries.