Democracy is under attack throughout the world, but, as a chronicler of Kurdish issues, I want to examine two recent blows in the Kurdish region of the Middle East:
In Syria, where the revolutionary experiment of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration is being forced to integrate into Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist dictatorship, the Transitional Government is perpetrating a mockery of democracy.
Meanwhile, in Turkey, in parallel with the stalling process through which Kurds hope to replace decades of armed struggle with a new democratic opening, state lawfare against the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has accelerated to such a level that many are writing the obituary of Turkish democracy.
Geopolitics
Turkish influence on the evolution of events in Syria is well documented and understood. Developments in both countries are taking place in a world where Turkey has been able to use its geographically strategic position to maximum advantage, and where international powers have no scruples over engaging with and supporting autocratic leaders, if they feel this is in their own interests.
Western nations have never shown much genuine concern for democracy in the countries with which they interact. Their support for autocratic leaders has a long history, and the only surprise in Syria is their belief that al-Sharaa will be able to achieve the stability demanded by Western investors.
The backing and building-up of al-Sharaa, like the abandonment of the Kurds, was a choice made under the shadow of Turkish interests. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may be presiding over a country where the majority of citizens are facing growing economic hardship, but he has proved an expert in the ruthless multidimensional chess of international diplomacy.
Erdoğan’s lawfare
Domestically, Erdoğan applies the same ruthlessness in his pursuit of power, which he craves not only for its own stake, but to stave off the judicial reckoning that would follow his departure from office.
After losing his majority support to the CHP — as demonstrated decisively at the local elections of March 2024 — he was not going to trust his future to the electorate.
Erdoğan was already well-practised in the use of lawfare against his political opponents. His previous targets had been from the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) and its successor, the People's Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party; and the HDP’s former co-chairs are among the thousands of party members still in Turkey’s prisons, in defiance of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights.
Over the past decade, the majority of HDP/DEM Party elected mayors have been dismissed. After the 2024 local elections, it became the turn of CHP mayors and party members.
While the Kurds were accused on terrorism-related charges, the reasons given for the removal and detention of CHP politicians and organisers have almost all been related to corruption.
The extent of corruption in Turkish politics as a whole was brutally exposed at the time of the 2023 earthquake, when the official approval of substandard construction resulted in thousands of extra deaths, but the corruption accusations against CHP politicians seem to miraculously evaporate if those politicians change their allegiance and join Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Turkey’s highly politicised judiciary appear to be followers of the maxim attributed to Josef Stalin’s chief of secret police: "show me the man and I'll show you the crime".
The attack against the CHP intensified in March 2025 with the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul and the man who was predicted to defeat Erdoğan in the next presidential elections.
The mass movement against this arrest and the other attacks has been led by CHP leader Özgür Özel, who took over the leadership from the party’s defeated 2023 presidential candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
Erdoğan’s judiciary tried to invalidate CHP processes, including Özel’s leadership election, which they claim was rigged, but their first attempts were rejected.
The Court of Appeal reversed that earlier decision and ruled, on May 21, the that the increasingly popular Özel and his executive be suspended and Kılıçdaroğlu be reinstated.
Kılıçdaroğlu, whose mask of honest reliability has long been removed, had already demonstrated his readiness to return in a video in which he criticised the CHP leadership.
Kılıçdaroğlu has claimed his old role, and Özel is appealing the decision in the supreme court. At the same time, İmamoğlu is defending himself in a court case where the prosecution demands a sentence of more than 2000 years.
May 23 began with detentions of party officials in connection with the rigging claims, and fears that Özel could be next. With the CHP wounded, there is speculation that Erdoğan may call an early election.
The Kurdish “Peace Process”
This uncompromising attack on democracy is being carried out against the background of discussions between Abdullah Öcalan, DEM Party leaders, and the Turkish State that it is hoped will develop into a peace process.
Öcalan and the DEM Party have always been clear that this process is not just about the end of decades of armed resistance, but also about the beginning of a democratic alternative; and that peace is not possible without democracy. In their condemnation of this latest attack against the CHP, the DEM Party reiterated the vital importance of democracy.
While the Kurds talk about the “Peace and Democratic Society Process”, the government insists on referring to it as a process for a “terror-free Turkey”. The state position has been spearheaded by Erdoğan’s ally, and leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli.
Bahçeli issued a long statement about the process on May 18. Although the word “democracy” appears many times, it has been reduced to mean little more than the absence of “terrorism”. Bahçeli’s document has no concrete proposals for integrating former guerrillas back into society or for releasing political prisoners, and it still expects the Kurds to integrate into “a common national identity” with “a shared past, culture, and language”.
Bahçeli wants to recognise Öcalan’s role in the process, but not to change his legal status or allow him any wider political role. He simply regards Öcalan as a tool who can deliver the liquidation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
If the PKK disarms and dissolves there will be thousands of Kurds looking for a democratic route for their politics. While the PKK guerrillas are ready to pursue democratic politics, Turkey is shutting down democracy. Prospects for peace are shutting down, too.
The current process began at a time when the Kurds controlled almost one-third of Syria and there were suggestions that Israel might give support to the Kurds in order to strengthen their own position vis à vis Turkey.
Today, Turkey’s international position is stronger, while the Kurds have been left isolated. The Turkish government appears in no hurry to move the process forward. It has become a convenient frame for constraining Kurdish action — Kurds do not want to antagonise their interlocutors — and lack of the hoped-for progress could weaken support for the organised Kurdish movement and its leaders.
Syria
In Syria, the Kurdish retreat and the integration agreement, forced on the Kurds by Western — especially United States — support for al-Sharaa, has led to criticism of the Kurdish leadership and of the multicultural ideas that are central to the Rojava project.
That leadership has acknowledged failures in their interpretation of their geopolitical situation, but international politics had dealt them an impossible hand. Now they are seeing the demolition of so much that they had fought for, and this is especially true for women.
The Transitional Government’s refusal to accept the Kurdish Women’s Defence Units (YPJ) into the army has direct and symbolic implications across the whole of society. Even the use of Kurdish is still unresolved.
As part of the integration process, the regions that formed the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria are being brought into the state structures with their own members in the Syrian parliament, the body that will draw up a new constitution. Although they are often talked about as though they were elected representatives, the two-thirds of parliamentary members not appointed directly by al-Sharaa are being chosen by district subcommittees appointed by a central committee.
Even within this highly centralised system, Kurds are finding themselves further deprived of power. Kurdish organisations have protested that the members they have been allotted are only a fraction of what they should be entitled to according to their percentage in Syria’s population.
While politics by identity brings its own problems, persecuted communities need representation; and if those members also came from Rojava’s radical political tradition they could act as a counter to the Islamist conservatism of al-Sharaa’s regime. However, the chances of retaining much of Rojava’s achievements are slim.
These developments have hardly been noticed by the countries supporting al-Sharaa. There has been little international interest in the stalling of the “peace process”; and while the attack on the CHP has produced strong criticism, this has not been reflected in international action.
It is hardly surprising that a world in which a genocide can be watched in detail on our phones, yet remain unpunished and even defended, is incapable of altering its political and economic relations in response to attacks on democracy.
[Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist — visit her websites at sarahglynn.net and newsfromkurdistan.wordpress.com and follow her on X or Bluesky.]