Turkish and Egyptian Ultras fight for their existence

Besiktas football team supporters clash with riot police and security forces during the Turkish Super League soccer match between Besiktas and Galatasaray at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium

Turkish police raided the homes of and arrested 72 militant supporters of Istanbul’s top clubs – Besiktas JK, Fenerbahce FC and Galatasaray SK — after a derby between Besiktas and Galatasary was abandoned because fans invades the pitch. Penalizing Besiktas, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) ordered the club to play its next four games behind closed doors.

Critics of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suspect that his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) engineered the incident in a bid to further repress Besiktas’s popular militant fan group – Carsi, who played a key role in mass anti-government protests earlier this year. They point to the fact that security was lax at the match and that a youth leader of the AKP boasted on Facebook how he had obtained a free ticket to the Besiktas-Galatasary derby and was one of the first to invade the pitch.

Turkish journalist Mehmet Baransu moreover documented links between 1453 Kartallari (1453 Eagles), a rival conservative Besiktas support group named in commemoration of the year that Ottoman Sultan Fatih the Conqueror drove the Byzantines out of Constantinople, and the AKP. 1453 members reportedly shouted ‘God is Great’ and attacked Carsi supporters during the pitch invasion.

The incident has strengthened the government’s hands in discussion with world soccer governor FIFA and European soccer body UEFA over the replacement of private security companies with regular police in stadia. FIFA and UEFA as of matter of principle favour a low key police presence in stadia. The move is part of an effort by Erdogan to gain control of and depoliticize Turkish soccer and criminalize fan groups in response to the key role they played in mass anti-government protests in June. Carsi lead the unification of Istanbul’s rival fan groups who constituted the front line in confrontations with the police.

The government has since banned the chanting of political slogans during matches and has said it was monitoring the communications of militant fans. It is further enforcing Breathalyzer tests at matches and demanding that clubs oblige spectators to sign a statement pledging to abide by the ban before they enter a stadium.

Fans have defied the ban by chanting during matches “Everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance,” a reference to Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square, which was the focal point of the protests sparked by plans to turn Gezi Park, which abuts the square, into a shopping mall.

Strengthening the government’s campaign, Besiktas president Fikret Orman criticized the performance of a private security firm hired for ten matches in Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium because the club’s own facility is under renovation. “Private security does not run away from the fans, they chase them. What we witnessed amounted to a comedy,” Orman said. He said that fans had entered the stadium without tickets. Up to 10,000 were believed to have entered the already packed stadium illegally.

Sports and youth ministry official Mehmet Baykan said, “Three entry points were broken into, the power supply to the turnstiles and eight ticket readers were sabotaged. 65 people have been caught with equipment which could have been used to cut the cables.”

Aware that the protests had reduced Istanbul’s chance of winning their bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games despite long being a frontrunner, government officials prepared the ground for blaming the activists for the Turkish capital’s loss. The protests were a major reason why the International Olympic Committee awarded the tournament earlier this month to Tokyo.

Turkish EU minister Egemen Bagis warned, “Those who protested at Taksim’s Gezi Park tried twice to drop Istanbul’s candidacy off the candidates list, but they failed. If Istanbul loses, it will be because of them.’’ Bagis’s comment was in response to the anti-government protests and a report by Turkish activists, architects and urban planners calling on the IOC not to award the games to Istanbul.

A report said, “Prosecutors and courts continue to use terrorism laws to prosecute and prolong incarceration of thousands of Kurdish political activists, human rights defenders, students, journalists and trade unionists. Free speech and media remain restricted and there have been serious violations of fair trial rights. Great obstacles remain in securing justice for victims of abuses by police, military and state officials. Press members are fired, contracts of academicians who supported Gezi are not renewed, film stars are searched for narcotics, and students are arbitrarily detained. The powers of the Chambers of Engineers and Architects were curbed. This was a reprisal for their role in the protests.”