As we move towards the height of the media frenzy over the Erdogan-Imamoglu showdown in Turkey, it is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on how the international press just will not be told: the country’s regime does not care about all the talk, the human values, the law or anything else in that vein. It has an army, it has a police force, an intelligence service, private security personnel and paramilitary forces. It has tanks, jets, guns and bombs.

You can hold as many meetings as you wish as long as you do not pose a threat to the regime. You can deliver intense speeches. You can more or less do whatever you want. However, if you become a threat to the regime and ignore the warnings, you’ll end up in jail, just as Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu (ex-mayor since March 23 courtesy of the interior ministry) and many others have.

Like the international press corps, Imamoglu’s party, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), also insists on not understanding the appallingly ugly reality of the autocracy that tightly grips Turkey. However, Imamoglu is seen as not your ordinary CHP politician, as neither a fool nor playing the fool. That said, if he failed to calculate that Turkey’s leader of 22 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would jail him and seize his wealth, he will have proved that observation wrong.

So far, if Imamoglu – late on Sunday night announced as the CHP’s presidential candidate following a primary vote, though a conviction would make him ineligible to stand for the presidency – has a clever plan, there is no sign of it. The regime will allow mass gatherings in front of Istanbul’s municipal headquarters for a few days more. Then, it will kill a few people and everyone will return to their homes, while Imamoglu remains sat in his prison cell.

Business as usual

Assessing the chances of the Imamoglu detention and prosecution generating a game-changing response, on March 19, bne IntelliNews concluded: “No challenge expected”.

“On past experience, the few media outlets in Turkey that still back Imamoglu’s party […] will kick up a fuss for a few days and some tweets will fly back and forth,” this publication added, advising: “There is no visible sign that a real challenge to the rule of Erdogan is any longer possible in the country. Whenever a few protesting Turks come together on the street, the police quickly swoop and take them away. Also, little external pressure is expected.”

For editors lacking clicks, Turkey is proving a godsend. The sensational headlines continue to roll, but at the same time the CHP has not surprised anyone who knows a thing or two about the country in the Erdogan era.

“[The CHP chair] Ozgur Ozel, known scathingly as "Minister of the Opposition" in Turkey, is not in a cell since he is no threat to the Erdogan regime,” this publication reiterated on March 20.

Since March 19, Ozel has each evening delivered an impassioned speech to a crowd assembled in front of Istanbul’s municipality building, having talked nonsense all day long. For those in the headlines industry, he’s a star performer.

After delivering his speech, Ozel hurries into the municipality building. The CHP’s social media accounts cut the livestream. And the police brutally disperse those in the crowd who’ve been slow in departing.

Such scenes play out up and down the country.

Tweets: Turkish police hitting people with tear gas devices.

The regime has killed before. It’s ready to kill again

If the homicides committed by the regime in the past two decades were added up, the number would be a six-digit figure. The map of its crimes covers a geography ranging from Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Just two weeks ago, the jihadists in Syria who enjoy Ankara’s backing slaughtered some more Alevis (also known as Alawis or Alawites). No one gave a damn.

During the Gezi protests that broke out across Turkey in 2013, the regime killed six people, fractured the skulls of 91 people and inflicted severe eye injuries on 10 people. In all, it wounded at least 7,478 people.

The death toll in the Imamoglu protests remains at zero so far. The regime has not killed anyone since it has not felt threatened.

Istanbul under siege, TV censored

Since March 19, the Istanbul governorate has blocked main boulevards in the city and has sporadically halted public transportation on main roads and metro lines.

Social media across the country has been periodically throttled, off and on.

On March 22, the Istanbul governorate announced that people suspected of attempting to travel into Istanbul to join the protests would be refused entry.

Ebubekir Sahin, head of the broadcasting watchdog RTUK, has, meanwhile, issued threats to TV channels considering broadcasting Ozel’s gatherings in front of the municipality building.

At the city courthouse where the Imamoglu proceedings were held, even MPs were not permitted to enter the courtroom as the charges were presented on March 23. They made a bit of noise and shared some videos, but they kept well away from the courtroom.

Ozel has said that the CHP will appeal against Imamoglu’s arrest. The party is in fact regularly seen at the constitutional court, appealing against unlawful legislation devised by the regime. The problem is that no law, constitutional or otherwise, is actually in effect in the country.