https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1973-1455
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ABSTRACT
Over the last decades, Turkey has expanded its digital capabilities in various issue areas. At the same time, regime change under the Justice and Development Party has resulted in unprecedented state repression against various groups, which increasingly occurs via digitized channels. While Turkey has been building digital capabilities since the late 1990s, efforts to control the flow of refugees since 2015/16 have further resulted in the accumulation of such capabilities. Turkey’s partners, most notably the EU, have been pivotal in Turkey’s development in this sphere. We trace Turkey’s deployment of its newly gained digital repressive infrastructure and triangulate insights from open-source data (i.e. government data, newspaper reports, and other digital traces) to map processes of (mis)use. We argue that the AKP regime is not only deploying digital and AI technologies for the purpose of border and migration governance, but it is also misusing these technologies by engaging in digital repression against refugees. We further find that digital repression strategies employed against refugee populations largely overlap with strategies used to gain control over political opposition and civil society actors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Hellmeier et al., “State of the World 2020”; Deibert, “Authoritarianism Goes Global”.
2 Earl, Maher, and Pan, “The Digital Repression of Social Movements, Protest, and Activism”; Feldstein, “The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance”; Feldstein, The Rise of Digital Repression; Feldstein, “The Road to Digital Unfreedom”; Frantz, Kendall-Taylor, and Wright, “Digital Repression in Autocracies”; Kendall-Taylor, Frantz, and Wright, “The Digital Dictators”.
3 Al-Jizawi et al., “Digital Transnational Repression”; Michaelsen, “Authoritarian Practices in the Digital Age Transforming Threats to Power”, Michaelsen, “Exit and Voice in a Digital Age”; Michaelsen, “Far Away, So Close”; Jones, Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East.
4 Bird, “NATO’s role in Counter-Terrorism”.
5 Gerschewski, “The Three Pillars of Stability”.
6 Polyakova and Meserole, “Exporting Digital Authoritarianism”.
7 Feldstein, The Rise of Digital Repression.
8 Feldstein, The Rise of Digital Repression; Ruan et al., “Information Control by Public Punishment”; Polyakova and Meserole, “Exporting Digital Authoritarianism”.
9 Akbari and Gabdulhakov, “Platform Surveillance and Resistance in Iran and Russia”; Gunitsky, “Corrupting the Cyber-Commons”.
10 Michaelsen, “Authoritarian Practices in the Digital Age Transforming Threats to Power”; Deibert, “Censors Get Smart”; Jones, Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East.
11 For reports on the use of such technologies by the Israel-based company NSO, see: https://citizenlab.ca/?s=NSO.
12 Gunitsky, “Corrupting the Cyber-Commons”; Deibert and Crete-Nishihata, “Global Governance and the Spread of Cyberspace Controls”.
13 Polyakova and Meserole, “Exporting Digital Authoritarianism”.
14 On the limits of autocracy promotion and its complexities, see: Brownlee, “The Limited Reach of Authoritarian Powers”; Cassier, “Russia and the Diffusion of Political Norms”.
15 Casas-Cortes, Cobarrubias, and Pickles, “Stretching Borders Beyond Sovereign Territories?”; “Changing Borders, Rethinking Sovereignty”; Menjívar, “Immigration Law Beyond Borders”; Pacciardi and Berntsson, “EU Border Externalisation and Security Outsourcing”.
16 Casas-Cortes, Cobarrubias, and Pickles, “Stretching Borders Beyond Sovereign Territories?”
17 Ibid., 77.
19 Nedelcu and Soysüren, “Precarious Migrants, Migration Regimes and Digital Technologies”; Glouftsios and Scheel, “An Inquiry into the Digitisation of Border and Migration Management: Performativity, Contestation and Heterogenous Engineering”.
20 Feldstein, The Rise of Digital Repression, 25.
21 See, for instance: Molnar, “Surveillance Sovereignty”; Molnar, “Robots and Refugees”.
22 Menjívar, “Immigration Law Beyond Borders,” 354.
23 Buzan et al., Security, 25–29.
24 Menjívar, “Immigration Law Beyond Borders,” 354.
25 Earl, Maher, and Pan, “The Digital Repression of Social Movements,” 9.
26 As the opposite of democratization, autocratization is a concept that “covers both sudden breakdowns of democracy à la Linz and gradual processes within and outside of democratic regimes where democratic traits decline, resulting in less democratic, or more autocratic, situations” See, Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave of Autocratization is Here,” 1099.
27 Esen and Gumuscu, “Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey”.
28 Topak, “The Making of a Totalitarian Surveillance Machine”; Topak, “The Authoritarian Surveillant Assemblage”; Ünver, “The Logic of Secrecy”.
29 Greenhill, “Open Arms Behind Barred Doors”.
30 Toğral, “Securitization of Migration in Europe”; Nedelcu and Soysüren, “Precarious Migrants, Migration Regimes and Digital Technologies”.
31 Gerring, “What is a Case Study and What is It Good For?”
32 All data were accessed in its original language and translated by the authors when cited directly.
33 Ahram and Paul Goode, “Researching Authoritarianism in the Discipline of Democracy”.
34 Pacciardi and Berntsson, “EU Border Externalisation and Security Outsourcing”; Kalir, Achermann, and Rosset, “Re-searching Access”; Lindberg and Borrelli, “Let the Right One In?”.
35 Feldstein, The Rise of Digital Repression, 2.
36 UN E-Government Survey.
37 Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı, “E-Dönüşüm Türkiye Projesi Kısa Dönem Eylem Planı”.
38 Teşkilatı Bilgi Toplumu Dairesi, Bilgi Toplumu Stratejisi ve Eylem Planı.
39 Atmaca, “E-Devlet’in Olgunlaştirilmasi”.
40 Esen and Gumuscu, “Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey”.
41 Esen and Gumuscu, “Turkey: How the Coup Failed”.
42 Arslanalp and Deniz Erkmen, “Mobile Emergency rule in Turkey”.
43 Yesil and Sozeri, “Online Surveillance in Turkey”.
45 Repucci, Sarah, and Amy Slipowitz, “Democracy Under Siege”.
46 Saka, “The AK Party’s Social Media Strategy”; Baloğlu, “Trolls, Pressure and Agenda”.
47 Turkey is a client of the Italian company Hacking Team which provides computer surveillance technology and is also using Chinese surveillance platforms. See, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2022/732268/IPOL_IDA(2022)732268_EN.pdf and for cooperation patterns between Turkey and China, see, Yilmaz and Eliküçük Yildirim, “Authoritarian Diffusion or Cooperation?”
48 Early steps include the European Initiative for Electronic Commerce in 1999 and the 2010 Communication titled Digital Agenda for Europe.
51 Demmelhuber, “The European Union and Illegal Migration in the Southern Mediterranean”; Kelemen, “The European Union’s Authoritarian Equilibrium”; Vradis et al., “New Borders”.
52 Zaragoza-Cristiani, “Containing the Refugee Crisis”; Lemberg-Pedersen, “Security, Industry and Migration”.
54 UNHCR, Türkiye Fact Sheet (February 2023): https://www.unhcr.org/tr/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2023/03/Bi-annual-fact-sheet-2023-02-Turkiye-.pdf.
55 Içduygu and Nimer, “The Politics of Return”; Yıldız and Uzgören, “Limits to Temporary Protection”.
56 Donelli, “Syrian Refugees in Turkey”; Koca, “Syrian Refugees in Turkey”.
57 Koca, “Syrian Refugees in Turkey”.
58 Erdoğan, “Securitization from Society”; Gulmez, “The Securitization of the Syrian Refugee Crisis”.
59 Memisoglu and Ilgit, “Syrian Refugees in Turkey”, 329.
65 The EU-Turkey statement announced on 7 March 2016 enforced that “all new irregular migrants and asylum seekers arriving from Turkey to the Greek islands and whose applications for asylum have been declared inadmissible should be returned to Turkey”. See, European Parliament, “EU-Turkey Statement”.
67 Ibid.
68 https://www.dw.com/en/erdogan-threatens-to-open-borders-after-european-parliament-vote/a-36518509.
74 Donelli, “Syrian Refugees in Turkey,” 6.
75 Koca, “Bordering Processes”.
76 Turkey has aligned its border management with the EU since 2006, including integration and cooperation with FRONTEX since 2012, however, a significant shift towards full alignment with the EU has taken place in 2016. See, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Press Release”.
77 European Commission, “Joint Action Plan”.
78 European Commission, “Turkey: EU Support”.
79 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate for EU Affairs, “Surveillance Capacity on Türkiye's Eastern and Western Borders”
80 Ibid.
81 European Commission, “Turkey: EU Support”.
82 https://politicstoday.org/securing-turkeys-borders-a-proactive-strategy-with-high-tech-approach/ and https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2021/10/28/unmanned-tech-dominates-turkeys-border-security-summit/.
83 Parliamentary question, “EU funding for borders surveillance in Turkey”.
84 European Parliament, “Answer by Mr Várhelyi”.
87 Ibid.
99 https://www.sozcu.com.tr/2021/gundem/sosyal-medyadan-kufurler-eden-terbiyesiz-yakalandi-6594480/.
100 https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20211105-syrian-refugees-in-turkey-face-deportation-over-viral-banana-videos and https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/30/turkey-banana-syria-refugee-deportation.
102 https://www.odatv4.com/guncel/istanbul-sozlesmesi-eylemine-katilan-multeciler-icin-karar-228597.
104 Yilmaz and Shipoli, “Use of Past Collective Traumas”; Yilmaz, Shipoli, and Dogru, “Transnational Securitization and Violence”; Arslanalp and Deniz Erkmen, “Mobile Emergency Rule in Turkey”.
106 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/27/google-youtube-ban-turkey-erdogan and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/turkey-blocks-twitter-prime-minister.
109 Akdeniz and Güven, “The Scorching Effect of Censorship”.
110 Akdeniz, “Turkish Internet Censorship”.
115 Marczak et al., Bad Traffic; Marczak et al., “Mapping Hacking Team's ‘Untraceable’ Spyware”.
116 Bradshaw and Howard, “Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers”.
117 Akiş, “Turkey’s Troll Networks”.
120 Brownlee, “The Limited Reach of Authoritarian Powers”; Cassier, “Russia and the Diffusion of Political Norms”; Weyland, “Autocratic Diffusion and Cooperation”.
121 Already Levitsky and Way, “Linkage Versus Leverage”, 382–3, highlight that inconsistent employment of leverage by democratic actors in the form of positive conditionality or punitive sanctions in instances of abuse has limited the positive, democratizing impact of external democratic powers in the West.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gözde Böcü
Gözde Böcü is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, Canada, specializing in comparative politics and international relations. Her research interests include transnationalism, migration, and authoritarianism. Her PhD research, based on multi-site fieldwork in Europe, explores Turkey's authoritarian diaspora policies and their effects on diasporas from a comparative perspective. Currently, Gözde is a Doctoral Fellow at the Citizen Lab where she conducts research at the intersection of human rights and cybersecurity with a specific focus on the digital dimension of transnational repression.
Noura Al-Jizawi
Noura Al-Jizawi is a Senior Researcher at the Citizen Lab, University of Toronto, where she specializes in research at the intersection of technology, cybersecurity, and human rights. Her research interests include digital transnational repression, digital authoritarianism, and targeted digital threats against civil society. Her contributions to the field have been recognized with an Excellence Through Innovation Award from the University of Toronto for her work Security Planner, a user-friendly platform that provides peer-reviewed recommendations for staying safe online. She holds a Master's degree in Global Affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.