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      Tucker Carlson Urges Putin to Release American Journalist

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      The Russian president was noncommittal after Mr. Carlson asked about Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been held in a Moscow prison for nearly a year.In an interview released on Thursday, Tucker Carlson urged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to release an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has been held in a notorious Moscow prison for nearly a year.Mr. Carlson’s appeal on behalf of the reporter, Evan Gershkovich, was only the second time that Mr. Putin directly addressed a case that has galvanized press freedom groups and strained diplomatic relations with the United States.Large portions of the two-hour interview were taken up by Mr. Putin’s recounting hundreds of years of Russian history. But in the final minutes, Mr. Carlson asked, “as a sign of your decency,” if he “would be willing to release him to us and we’ll bring him back to the United States.” Mr. Carlson added: “This guy’s obviously not a spy. He’s a kid, and maybe he was breaking your law in some way, but he’s not a superspy, and everybody knows that.”Mr. Putin was noncommittal in his response. “We have done so many gestures of good will out of decency that I think we have run out of them,” he said, according to a translation of his remarks by Mr. Carlson’s team.Pressed about the case by Mr. Carlson, Mr. Putin later added: “I also want him to return to his homeland at last. I’m absolutely sincere. But let me say once again, the dialogue continues.”The Russian leader suggested that he wanted additional concessions from American officials before he would consider releasing Mr. Gershkovich. Mr. Putin suggested that he might be willing to trade the reporter for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian citizen sentenced to life in prison in Germany for the 2019 murder of a Chechen former separatist fighter in Berlin.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democracy in Bangladesh Is Quietly Being Crushed

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      Bangladesh’s multiparty democracy is being methodically strangled in crowded courtrooms across this country of 170 million people.Nearly every day, thousands of leaders, members and supporters of opposition parties stand before a judge. Charges are usually vague, and evidence is shoddy, at best. But just months before a pivotal election pitting them against the ruling Awami League, the immobilizing effect is clear.About half of the five million members of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, are embroiled in politically motivated court cases, the group estimates. The most active leaders and organizers face dozens, even hundreds, of cases. Lives that would be defined by raucous rallies or late-night strategizing are instead dominated by lawyers’ chambers, courtroom cages and, in Dhaka, the torturously snail-paced traffic between the two.One recent morning, a party leader, Saiful Alam Nirob, was ushered into Dhaka’s 10-story magistrate court in handcuffs. Mr. Nirob faces between 317 and 394 cases — he and his lawyers are unsure exactly how many. Outside the court, a dozen supporters — facing an additional 400 cases among them — waited in an alley whose bustle was cleared only by intermittent monsoon downpours and the frequent blowing of a police whistle to open the way for another political prisoner.The police ushering Saiful Alam Nirob, an opposition leader, to court in Dhaka in June. He faces hundreds of court cases.A rally by supporters of the ruling Awami League in July.“I can’t do a job anymore,” said one of the supporters, Abdul Satar, who is dealing with 60 cases and spends three or four days a week in court. “It’s court case to court case.”In recent years, Bangladesh has been known mostly as an economic success story, with a strong focus on a garment export industry that brought in a steady flow of dollars, increased women’s participation in the economy and lifted millions out of poverty. A country once described by American officials as a basket case of famine and disease appeared to be overcoming decades of coups, countercoups and assassinations.But under the surface, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has waged a campaign of political consolidation whose goal, opposition leaders, analysts and activists say, is to turn the South Asian republic into a one-party state.Over her 14 years in office, she has captured Bangladesh’s institutions, including the police, the military and, increasingly, the courts, by filling them with loyalists and making clear the consequences for not falling in line.She has wielded these institutions both to smother dissent — her targets have also included artists, journalists, activists and even the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus — and to carry out a deeply personal campaign of vengeance against her political enemies.With an election expected in December or January, the country again feels on the verge of eruption. The opposition sees the vote as a last fight before what could be its full vanquishing. Ms. Hasina’s lieutenants, for their part, say in no uncertain terms that they cannot let the B.N.P. win — “they will kill us” if they come to power, as one aide put it.When asked during an interview in her Dhaka office about using the judiciary to harass the opposition, Ms. Hasina sent an aide out of the room to retrieve a photo album. It was a catalog of horrors: graphic pictures of maimed bodies after arsons, bombings and other attacks.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office in Dhaka in June.Bangladesh’s economic success story in recent years has overshadowed its slide toward a one-party state. “It is not political, it is not political,” the prime minister said of the court cases, pointing to the visuals as examples of the “brutality” of the B.N.P. “It is because of their crime.”B.N.P. leaders say that about 800 of their members have been killed and more than 400 have disappeared since Ms. Hasina came to power in 2009. In the interview, Ms. Hasina said the B.N.P., when it was in power, had done much the same to her party, jailing and killing her supporters by the thousands.“They started this,” Ms. Hasina said.The SurvivorsThe story of Bangladesh over the past three decades has largely been one of bitter rivalry between two powerful women — Ms. Hasina, 75, and Khaleda Zia, 77, the leader of the B.N.P. and the country’s first female prime minister.Ms. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s most prominent independence leader when the country broke away from Pakistan in 1971. He was killed four years later in a military coup, and much of his family was massacred.Ms. Zia was married to Ziaur Rahman, the army chief who came to power in the bloody chaos that followed Sheikh Mujib’s murder. Mr. Rahman himself was assassinated by soldiers in 1981.For much of the time since, the two surviving women have been locked in a fight over who defines Bangladesh’s democracy — and who is entitled to rule over it.“Actually it was my struggle to establish democracy,” Ms. Hasina said. Pointing to Ms. Zia’s husband, she added: “This opposition, you know, was created by a military dictator.”The B.N.P. says it was the one that restored multiparty democracy after Ms. Hasina’s father declared the country a one-party state — an unfinished project that the B.N.P. says Ms. Hasina is determined to complete.The story of Bangladesh in recent decades has largely been one of bitter rivalry between two powerful women: Ms. Hasina and Khaleda Zia, seen on a large poster inside the office of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in Dhaka. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the B.N.P.’s secretary general and de facto leader.“They don’t believe in democracy,” said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the B.N.P.’s secretary general.In 2018, Ms. Zia was jailed on graft charges. Today, she lives under house arrest, where, in deteriorating health, she is reduced to watching television and reading the newspaper, her aides say.Her son Tarique Rahman, who was implicated in a 2004 attack in which a dozen grenades were hurled at Ms. Hasina during a rally — a charge the B.N.P. denies — lives in exile in London. Mr. Alamgir, the party’s de facto leader in their absence, spends much of his time dealing with the 93 court cases he faces.Ms. Hasina has intensified her assault on the opposition as she has found herself in her most politically vulnerable position in years.Just as Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic disrupted global demand, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food, pushing the country’s supply of dollars perilously low.“It has put tremendous pressure on our economy,” Ms. Hasina said.Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food.Anger has risen in Bangladesh over the rising food prices and power cuts.The battered opposition saw an opportunity in anger over rising food prices and power cuts, and, fearing an unfair election, was eager to take the showdown to the streets after Ms. Hasina refused to appoint a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the vote.During a rare large rally in June, B.N.P. speakers demanded free elections and the release of political prisoners. But as supporters marched across Dhaka, their chants offered an indication of the bubbling tensions: “Set fire to Hasina’s throne” and “A flood of blood will wash away the injustice.”As the police held back and allowed the rally and march to proceed, ruling-party leaders staged a rival rally where speakers acknowledged that the European Union and the United States were watching Bangladesh’s democracy. The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Ms. Hasina’s senior security officers and threatened visa restrictions, and American and European officials have made several visits to Bangladesh in recent months.A few weeks after the B.N.P. rally, though, an unsettled Ms. Hasina responded with force. When the party’s supporters tried to hold another large rally, the police met them with clubs and tear gas — and 500 fresh court cases. The crackdown showed that, even as the West issues warnings, it ultimately has limited sway over a leader who has deftly balanced ties with Asia’s two giants, China and India.Opposition supporters during their rally against the governing party in June.Ms. Hasina has governed Bangladesh since 2009 and is seeking re-election in the coming months.Increasingly, the government’s powers are wielded en masse, said Ashraf Zaman, a Bangladeshi lawyer and activist in exile who works with the Asian Human Rights Commission. The police round up scores of people in one case — accusing them of “anti-state activities” or of blocking police work — and leave room for more to be added by listing dozens or even hundreds of “unnamed persons” in the same case. Each individual case can involve multiple charges.By the time the evidence, often flimsy, is put in front of a judge, the accused have spent months in jail, often at risk of harassment or torture in custody, human rights activists say. Bail, lawyers and legal experts said, has become harder to get in political cases. If the accused does get released, the government presents it as a magnanimous gift, not as acknowledgment that the person should not have been detained in the first place.Defense lawyers argue in court that their client “has a family, he has already spent this long time, if you kindly give him bail it would be appreciated, and the prosecution ‘allows’ it,” Mr. Zaman said.The CourtOne of the busiest places for political cases is Dhaka’s magistrate court, where Mr. Nirob, the B.N.P. leader facing more than 300 cases, was taken one morning in June. Syed Nazrul, Mr. Nirob’s lawyer, said his client had at least one case filed against him in every police station in the city.Before proceedings begin each morning, about a dozen lawyers cram into Room 205 at the bar association building, where Mr. Nazrul checks papers one last time. On June 12, the office’s large ledger showed that the team was defending clients in 33 cases that day, 32 of them involving the B.N.P.Lawyers crammed into a room at the bar association building in Dhaka in June. Many represent political prisoners. Syed Nazrul, a lawyer, inspecting documents for cases filed against a B.N.P. leader.Then the lawyers make their way through the narrow alley — buzzing with vendors selling anything from chicken to marigold to replacement teeth — that connects the bar association with the crowded courthouse.“The hearing takes, maximum, 20 minutes. All day is spent back and forth in this harassment,” Mr. Nazrul said.Even those fighting for causes beyond the bitter rivalry between the two political parties increasingly pay a heavy price.Didarul Bhuiyan, a computer engineer, returned to Dhaka after completing his studies in Australia. He set up a small software company, got married and raised three sons. But a question nagged at him: Had he made the right decision in returning?Mr. Bhuiyan became active in a civil society movement aimed at strengthening checks in the system, so his children would not be forced to pursue a life abroad. “Whenever someone gets to power, they go above the law,” he said.After Mr. Bhuiyan’s group criticized the management of relief funds during the pandemic, security forces in civilian clothes took him away in a van with tinted windows.Didarul Bhuiyan with his family in Dhaka in July. He spent five months in jail after criticizing the government’s management of Covid relief money. A woman and her relatives waving at people on a bus leaving court in Dhaka.“The incidents of disappearances were common; we worried about what could happen to him,” said his wife, Dilshad Ara Bhuiyan.As Ms. Bhuiyan went from court to court hoping to apply for bail for her husband, they refused to hear his case, even though the government had filed no charges against him. “The judge would see the name, the case, and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t,’” Mr. Bhuiyan said.After five months in jail, he got bail. The police did not file charges until about a year after his arrest, leveling vague accusations of treason and conspiracy against the state. As a central piece of evidence, the police submitted a Facebook post by Mr. Bhuiyan — which he had written months after his release. A time stamp marked a screenshot as having been taken three hours before.A fellow activist, Mushtaq Ahmed, who was detained around the same time as Mr. Bhuiyan, died in jail. A large portrait of Mr. Ahmed sits on a drawer in Mr. Bhuiyan’s home office.Mr. Bhuiyan called Mr. Ahmed’s death political murder.“Putting someone in jail for 10 months without any trial whatsoever is good enough to kill someone,” he said. More

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      Imran Khan Sentenced to Prison in Pakistan

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      The former prime minister of Pakistan was taken into custody, sentenced to three years after a court found him guilty of illegally selling state gifts and concealing the assets.Former Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan was arrested on Saturday after a trial court sentenced him to three years in prison, a verdict likely to end his chances of running in upcoming general elections.The police took Mr. Khan into custody from his home in the eastern city of Lahore soon after the court’s decision was announced in Islamabad.The verdict is a climactic turn in a political showdown between Mr. Khan and Pakistan’s powerful military that has embroiled the country for over a year.It comes on the heels of a monthslong intimidation campaign by the military aimed at hollowing out Mr. Khan’s political party and stifling the remarkable political comeback he has made since being ousted from office last year in a vote of no confidence.Now, the prospect that Mr. Khan, a cricket star turned populist politician, will be disqualified from running in the country’s general elections — the next ones are expected this fall — has offered a major victory to a military establishment that appears intent on sidelining him from politics.It has also sent a powerful message to Mr. Khan and his supporters, who have directly confronted and defied the military like few else in Pakistan’s 75-year history: The military is the ultimate hand wielding political power behind the government, and no amount of public backlash will change that.“Imran Khan’s arrest marks a significant turning point in the state’s actions against P.T.I.,” said Zaigham Khan, a political analyst and columnist based in Islamabad, using the initials of Mr. Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. That effort seems “designed to hinder the P.T.I.’s chances in the upcoming elections,” he added.Supporters of Mr. Khan clashed with the police in Peshawar in May.Arshad Arbab/EPA, via ShutterstockIn its ruling on Saturday, the trial court found the former prime minister guilty of hiding assets after illegally selling state gifts.“The allegations against Mr. Khan are proven,” said Judge Humayun Dilawar, who announced the verdict in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. The court also imposed a fine of around $355.The case is related to an inquiry by the country’s election commission, which found last October that Mr. Khan had illegally sold gifts given to him by other countries when he was prime minister and concealed the profits from the authorities.Mr. Khan has denied any wrongdoing. He and his lawyers had accused Judge Dilawar of bias and sought to have the case transferred to another judge. They are likely to appeal this ruling.In a statement, Mr. Khan’s party rejected the verdict, calling it “the worst example of political revenge.”Members of the country’s governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, welcomed the outcome. In a statement, the country’s information minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, hailed Mr. Khan’s arrest and denied that it was linked to “political persecution” or that it was part of a plot to prevent the former prime minister from running in the country’s next elections.“My message to Imran Khan is straightforward: Your time is up,” she said.The verdict is the culmination of a nationwide political saga that has escalated since Mr. Khan was ousted in April 2022. In the months that followed, he drew thousands out to protests where he railed against the country’s powerful military establishment and accused Pakistan’s generals of orchestrating his fall from power — an accusation they deny.Mr. Khan, who is facing an array of court cases, was briefly arrested earlier this year in a different one. That arrest, on May 9, set off violent protests across the country, as well as attacks on military installations. Days afterward, the country’s top court declared that the authorities had unlawfully detained Mr. Khan and ordered his release.The protests channeling anger toward the military were widely considered to have crossed an unspoken red line of defiance — a rare rebuke in a country where few defy military leaders. Since then, Pakistan’s military establishment has staged an extensive crackdown.Security forces near an office of Mr. Khan’s party in Karachi on Saturday.Rehan Khan/EPA, via ShutterstockThrongs of supporters of Mr. Khan were arrested in connection with the protests in May. Media personalities considered sympathetic to him said they were intimidated. And many prominent leaders of his party resigned — after they were arrested or said they had been threatened with criminal charges and arrests.After Mr. Khan was arrested on Saturday in Lahore, the police in several cities were put on alert in case his supporters again took to the streets.In a prerecorded message before his arrest in Lahore on Saturday, Mr. Khan urged his supporters to stage peaceful protests and not remain silent at home. In the port city of Karachi and in Peshawar, a few dozen supporters staged small protests.But unlike when Mr. Khan was arrested in May, by Saturday evening there were no mass protests in support of Mr. Khan — a sign of the effectiveness of the military’s efforts to intimidate his supporters in recent months, analysts say.In recent weeks, Pakistan’s governing coalition had signaled that it was considering postponing the fall elections so that the military’s crackdown on Mr. Khan’s party could continue and so that the coalition’s political leaders could be sure that he would not pose a major political threat in the race. But now, his arrest and likely disqualification may make that unnecessary, observers say.“Khan’s removal from the scene may actually expedite the election process, potentially allowing them to be held within 90 days, if not sooner,” said Zaigham Khan, the political analyst. “What remains to be seen is whether he can obtain any immediate relief from the superior courts, where his sentence could be suspended.” More

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      Elecciones generales de España: las alianzas al centro del debate

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      Los grandes temas del país han estado en buena medida ausentes del debate político. Las posibles coaliciones y los aliados de los principales partidos han sido el foco de la campaña.La guerra en Ucrania avanza. Las temperaturas abrasadoras impulsan una reflexión sobre el cambio climático. La inseguridad económica abunda. Pero las elecciones españolas podrían resolverse en torno al asunto de las malas compañías.Mientras los españoles se preparan para votar en las elecciones generales del domingo, los expertos opinan que a los votantes se les pide decidir quién —el gobierno de centroizquierda o la oposición de centroderecha— tiene los amigos más desagradables y los menos aceptables y peligrosamente extremistas.Las encuestas sugieren que el presidente del gobierno, Pedro Sánchez, el líder socialista, será reemplazado por los conservadores, que han aprovechado su dependencia a algunos aliados que han intentado separarse de España. Entre ellos, el movimiento independentista catalán del norte de España y los descendientes políticos del grupo vasco separatista ETA, que enfureció a los votantes antes de las elecciones autonómicas y municipales de mayo cuando presentaron a 44 terroristas convictos como candidatos, entre ellos siete que fueron hallados culpables de asesinato.Los socialistas de Sánchez, por su parte, han expresado inquietud por los aliados extremistas de sus oponentes conservadores, el partido Vox. Vox podría ser el primer partido de extrema derecha en llegar al gobierno desde la dictadura de Franco si es que, como se espera, el principal partido conservador gana y necesita formar una coalición.Pedro Sánchez en un mitin en Madrid.Juan Medina/ReutersEsta atención minuciosa a las alianzas políticas ha ensombrecido un debate sobre temas clave en España, como la vivienda, la economía y el empleo, así como el historial actual del presidente del gobierno, que incluye haber obtenido de la Unión Europea un tope al precio del gas destinado a la producción de electricidad.Estas elecciones, explicó Pablo Simón, politólogo de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, se centran en los socios. “Los socios de la derecha y los socios de la izquierda”.Ni el conservador Partido Popular (PP) ni el Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) de Sánchez han aumentado o descendido de manera radical en sus respectivos apoyos desde las últimas elecciones, en 2019, y ninguno de los dos partidos se espera que obtenga una mayoría absoluta en el Congreso de 350 escaños de España.Más bien, el PP y sus posibles socios nacionalistas de Vox han usado a los aliados del presidente para crear una imagen de lo que llaman el “sanchismo”, que definen como el impulso egoísta, arrogante y sin escrúpulos del presidente para romper cualquier promesa y establecer cualquier tipo de alianza para quedarse en el poder.El principal reclamo es por su alianza con los catalanes independentistas. Durante las últimas elecciones generales de España, Sánchez prometió detener a los principales separatistas catalanes. Pero poco después, cuando la supervivencia de su gobierno dependía de ese apoyo, empezó a negociar para indultarlos.“Se sentó en la mesa con nosotros por la presión política y la necesidad de gobernar el país”, dijo Gabriel Rufián, integrante del Congreso por Esquerra Republicana, un partido a favor de la independencia de Cataluña.Los conservadores también recuerdan a menudo que Sánchez alguna vez dijo que no podría conciliar el sueño si el partido de extrema izquierda Podemos entrara a su gobierno. Pero, como Sánchez necesitaba al partido, lo integró.Desde entonces, Podemos ha colapsado y, a decir de los expertos, sus errores y extralimitaciones han sumado votantes moderados e indecisos a las filas conservadoras. Sánchez espera que un nuevo grupo de izquierda, Sumar, logre compensar esas pérdidas y lo lleve hasta un umbral en donde, otra vez, pueda recurrir a sus aliados separatistas para que lo apoyen en el Congreso.Un mitin de Sumar en Barcelona. Sánchez espera que el nuevo grupo que reúne a distintos partidos de izquierda pueda mejorar sus posibilidades.Maria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesEn una entrevista con la Radio Nacional de España el domingo, Sánchez dijo que, de ser necesario, buscaría apoyo de ambos partidos independentistas una vez más.“Por supuesto”, dijo Sánchez, “para sacar adelante una reforma laboral busco votos hasta debajo de las piedras. Lo que nunca voy a hacer es lo que han hecho el PP y Vox, que es recortar derechos y libertades, negando la violencia machista. Para avanzar, yo pacto con quien haga falta”.Los seguidores de Sánchez afirman que las negociaciones y los indultos han reducido en gran medida las tensiones con el separatismo catalán, pero los votantes conservadores dicen que la cuasiseparación igual deja un mal sabor de boca.Lo que es más, aseguran que les disgusta la dependencia de Sánchez a los votos de EH Bildu, descendientes del ala política de ETA, que dejó un saldo de más de 850 personas muertas cuando, también, buscaba formar un país independiente de España.El grupo terrorista vasco se desintegró hace más de una década y la justicia española ha determinado que Bildu es un grupo político legítimo y democrático. Pero para muchos españoles sigue en la sombra del legado sangriento del pasado y su presencia resulta inquietante para la unidad futura del país.Incluso los aliados clave de Sánchez admitieron que la derecha se benefició al dictar los términos de las elecciones como un referéndum sobre Bildu.La campaña entera se basa en esto, comentó Ernest Urtasun, miembro del Parlamento Europeo y portavoz de la plataforma de izquierda Sumar. “Moviliza a gran parte del electorado de la derecha y desmoviliza al electorado de la izquierda”.Pero, indicó, la contienda aún era fluida en los últimos días y aseguró que los sondeos internos mostraban que iban avanzando. Entre más lograra la izquierda apegarse a los temas sociales y económicos, y no a sus aliados, dijo, tendrían mejores posibilidades.Si Sánchez llegara a requerir sus votos en el Congreso para gobernar, los líderes de los movimientos independentistas han dejado en claro que no darán su apoyo a cambio de nada.Habrá un “precio” adicional, que incluirá negociaciones para eventualmente llevar a cabo un referéndum por la independencia de Cataluña, dijo Rufián. Alegó que la derecha, y en especial Vox, siempre han tenido algún tema de discordia para distraer a los votantes de los problemas reales y que en esta ocasión ese tema eran los catalanes y los vascos.“A nosotros no nos podrán responsabilizar” por los puntos de la agenda de la derecha, dijo Rufián.Rufián dijo que Sánchez le había advertido que España no estaba preparada aún para perdonar a los secesionistas, y que su coalición sufriría daños políticos si se otorgaban los indultos. Pero, presionado, el presidente dio marcha atrás.“Es bueno para la democracia que no vaya gente a la cárcel por votar”, dijo de los indultos concedidos por Sánchez. Si eso se castiga políticamente, añadió, “yo acepto”.Pero los indultos y las alianzas han facilitado a los candidatos conservadores persuadir a los votantes españoles a juzgar a Sánchez por las alianzas que forja.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, ha calificado a Sánchez como la “gran esperanza electoral” para quienes andaban con pasamontañas, en una clara referencia a los terroristas de ETA. Los líderes de izquierda han observado que Feijóo parece haber tenido sus propias amistades cuestionables, al llamar otra vez la atención hacia fotografías en las que se le ve en un yate con un traficante convicto de cocaína.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, en Madrid. Es posible que Feijóo busque gobernar solo, pero quizás no sea capaz de lograrlo.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeijóo evitó el último debate televisado de campaña, diciendo que quería que también los separatistas estuvieran en el escenario. Los socialistas creen que simplemente es una estrategia de dispensación de favores políticos para evitar cuestionamientos por su cercanía con el narcotraficante y para distanciarse de su aliado nominal, Santiago Abascal, líder de Vox.Al final, Feijóo dijo que tenía problemas de espalda.Feijóo ha dejado en claro que preferiría gobernar solo, sin Abascal. Pero Abascal quiere participar y ha indicado que si Vox entrara al gobierno se opondría con fuerza a cualquier movimiento separatista.En un evento de campaña este mes, Abascal acusó a Sánchez de mentir y de pactar con “los enemigos de la democracia” y añadió, “para Pedro Sánchez proteger la democracia es que le voten violadores, golpistas, ladrones”.Ese tipo de discurso es parte del manual de Vox.Según Aurora Rodil Martínez, concejala por Vox de Elche, en donde Vox gobierna junto con el PP —un escenario que podría ser el que se viva a nivel nacional—, Sánchez tiene un ansia patológica de poder. Consideró que su personalidad está “enfocada en sí mismo” y opinó que por ello no tiene empacho en aliarse con la extrema izquierda, “los herederos de ETA”.Rodil Martínez dijo que los aliados de Sánchez en el movimiento independentista catalán desean separarse de España. Añadió que Sánchez se ha “arrodillado” antes sus aliados de Podemos y requerido del apoyo de Bildu, a quienes calificó de “terroristas” y culpables de “crímenes sangrientos”.Todo lo anterior, dijeron los expertos, constituía una distracción de los verdaderos desafíos del país.“Estamos discutiendo sobre los socios”, dijo Simón, el politólogo y añadió que eso era algo terrible porque no se discutían las políticas.Un afiche con el retrato de Santiago Abascal, líder de VoxMaria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesJason Horowitz es el jefe del buró en Roma; cubre Italia, Grecia y otros sitios del sur de Europa. Cubrió la campaña presidencial de 2016 en Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Obama y al Congreso estadounidense con un énfasis en especiales y perfiles políticos. @jasondhorowitz More

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      In Belarus, the Protests Were Three Years Ago. The Crackdown Is Never-Ending.

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      The recent high school graduate selected her wardrobe carefully as she headed off to a summer folk festival.She dressed all in white, as is customary for the event, and wore a large flower wreath in her golden hair. But when it came to choosing a sash for her skirt, she grabbed a brown leather band, avoiding the color red.In Belarus, red and white are the colors of the protest movement against the country’s authoritarian leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko. And even the smallest sign of protest can land a person in jail. “I worry about attracting the wrong kind of attention from the authorities,” said the young woman, who spoke on the condition that her name not be used so she would not draw scrutiny.After claiming victory in a widely disputed presidential election three years ago — and violently crushing the outraged protests that followed — Mr. Lukashenko has ushered in a chilling era of repression.He is moving ever closer to his patron, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, positioning himself as an invaluable military ally to Russia in its war against Ukraine, but also cracking down on dissent in a way that is invisible to much of the world but rivals that of Mr. Putin’s punitive regime.Children in the Minsk region playing near the “Mound of Glory,” a memorial to those who fought in World War II.An exhibit at the Belarusian State Museum of the history of the Great Patriotic War.Belarusian security forces are rounding up opposition figures, journalists, lawyers and even people committing offenses like commenting on social media memes or insulting Mr. Lukashenko in private conversations with acquaintances that are overheard and reported.In particular, activists and rights groups say, the country’s security forces are intent on finding and punishing the people who participated in the 2020 protests. Belarusians are getting arrested for wearing red and white, sporting a tattoo of a raised fist — also a symbol of the protest movement — or for just being seen in three-year-old photographs of the anti-government demonstrations.“In the last three years, we went from a soft autocracy to neo-totalitarianism,” said Igor Ilyash, a journalist who opposes Mr. Lukashenko’s rule. “They are criminalizing the past.”Belarusians interviewed by The New York Times over three days this month echoed that sentiment, expressing fear that even a slight perceived infraction related to the revolution could bring prison time.The crackdown has made people much more cautious about overtly showing their anger at the government, said Mr. Ilyash. That, in turn, has prompted the authorities to focus on participation in old protests in an attempt to intimidate and stifle dissent.Scrutiny of Mr. Lukashenko’s repressive reign has increased since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, and in particular in recent months.Belarus let the Kremlin invade Ukraine from its territory last year. In March, Russia announced it would station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. Video evidence suggests Belarus is now housing forces from Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, and on Thursday, the government said Wagner forces were training special Belarusian operations units only a few miles from the border with Poland.The security crackdown has thinned the ranks of lawyers: More than 500 have been stripped of their law licenses or left the profession or the country.And Belarus has become particularly perilous for journalists. There are now 36 in jail, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, after the arrest on Monday of Ihar Karnei, 55. He has written for the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which Belarus has banned as an “extremist” organization. People can be sentenced to up to seven years in prison for just sharing its content.“In the last three years, we went from a soft autocracy to neo-totalitarianism,” said Igor Ilyash, a journalist whose wife, also a journalist, is imprisoned.Mr. Ilyash does not leave his apartment without a small backpack holding essentials that he would need in case he were detained and imprisoned.According to Viasna, a human rights group that shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year, security forces raided Mr. Karnei’s home and seized his electronic devices. He is in Belarus’s notorious Okrestina detention center, the group said, and neither his family nor his lawyers have had access to him.Belarus has criminalized most independent news outlets and the journalists’ association as “extremist,” which makes following them on social media a crime.Mr. Ilyash’s wife, the award-winning journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, was sentenced to eight years in prison in two separate cases and now labors in a penal colony as a seamstress, earning less than $4 a month, her husband said.In the prison, she is forced to wear a yellow badge on her chest identifying her as a political prisoner. When she is released in 2028, if the same government is still in power, she will still be considered an “extremist” and barred from certain activities, including journalism.Mr. Ilyash himself spent 25 days in prison, and with one criminal case against him still open, he is barred from leaving the country. He does not leave his apartment without a small backpack that contains the essentials for prison, in case he is detained: a toothbrush, toothpaste, spare underwear and socks.Activists and opposition figures are also being targeted. This month, the artist Ales Pushkin died in a penal colony at age 57. He is believed to be the third political prisoner to die in Belarusian custody since the protests began in 2020.Several of the country’s best-known political prisoners, like the leading opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova, have neither been seen by their family members or lawyers, nor permitted to write letters, meaning they have been out of touch for months.Viasna, the rights group, has identified almost 1,500 political prisoners in Belarus today, and a further 1,900 people convicted in what the group calls “politically motivated criminal trials.”“Arrests for what happened in 2020 are occurring practically every week, almost every day,” said Evgeniia Babayeva of Viasna, a human rights group that shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year.The Okrestina detention center in Minsk. Former inmates who spent time there described beatings and horrific conditions. “The security services are still watching people’s videos, and scouring social media and photos of the protests all these years later,” said Evgeniia Babayeva, a Viasna staff member who catalogs politically motivated detentions in Belarus from exile in Lithuania.Ms. Babayeva was arrested in July 2021, on the same day as the group’s founder, Ales Bialiatski, along with a handful of other colleagues. She was released only because she signed an agreement to collaborate with the security services, but she said she fled Belarus the same day.In March, Mr. Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “cash smuggling” and “financing actions and groups that grossly violated public order,” charges widely viewed by watchdog groups as spurious and intended to discredit the organization.On the surface, visitors to the country’s capital would have to look closely to see any signs that the protests in 2020 happened at all. Minsk, which takes pride in its cleanliness, is tidy, with a modern city center. Billboards trumpet 2023 as the “year of peace and creation,” and the roadside public gardens are manicured in national Belarusian motifs.But residents say a more ominous sensibility hangs over the city and the country. Cameras with facial recognition ability watch over public spaces and residential elevators, keeping tabs on ordinary Belarusians carrying out day-to-day activities.One evening in June, a Minsk resident was out for a walk when she was approached by the police, who reprimanded her for a simple administrative violation, less serious than jaywalking.A Belarusian military billboard in Minsk. Belarus and Russia have grown closer over the past few years, especially when it comes to the military.A Minsk resident who was jailed for a simple administrative violation while she was out walking.The officer searched her name in the police database, turning up evidence of previous detention for participation in the 2020 protests. Police officers soon drew up an accusation that she had cursed in their station — which she denies — and she was put into the Okrestina detention center for 10 days on a “hooliganism” charge.She shared a small cell with 12 other women, she said. There were no mattresses or pillows, and the light was on 24 hours a day. Though everyone became sick — she contracted a bad case of Covid — they had to share toothbrushes. There were no showers, and if a woman got her period, she was given cotton balls rather than pads or tampons.(The woman’s name and her offense are being withheld at her request because the information could identify her and draw retribution. Her identity was confirmed by The Times, and friends confirmed that she had given similar accounts to them.)The repressive environment is stifling people and prompting many to leave. The high school graduate who went to the celebration of the summer solstice and the Belarusian poet Yanka Kupala said she had attended because of a dearth of public events since 2020.“There is nowhere for us to go anymore,” she said, complaining that control was so tight that even traditional songs had been approved in advance by the authorities. She said most good musicians have been named “extremists” and left the country.Floral headwear was a popular choice for festival attendees.The festival in the Minsk region celebrated Kupalle, which is tied to the summer solstice.The girl said she planned to follow them, hoping to continue her studies in Cyprus or Austria. At least half of her classmates had already left Belarus.Another festivalgoer, Vadim, 37, said he had the impression that at least half of his friends had spent time in prison because of their political views.He said his wife had already emigrated, and he was contemplating joining her.“The war was a trigger for many people to leave,” he said.“Before, we thought this situation would eventually end,” Vadim said, “but once the war started, we knew it would only get worse.”A tour group near the Lenin Monument in Minsk. More

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      Spain’s Election Puts Focus on Leading Parties’ Allies

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      Before voting Sunday, a focus on the leading parties’ allies has dominated the campaign — and obscured debate about more fundamental issues.The war in Ukraine is raging. Scorching temperatures are prompting a reckoning with climate change. Economic insecurity abounds. But the Spanish election may pivot on the question of bad company.As Spaniards prepare to vote in national elections on Sunday, experts say that voters are being asked to decide who — the center-left government or the favored center-right opposition — has the more unsavory, less acceptable and dangerously extremist friends.Polls suggest that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist leader, will be ousted by conservatives who have made hay of his reliance on allies who have tried to secede from Spain. They include northern Spain’s Catalonian independence movement and political descendants of the Basque secessionist group ETA, who infuriated voters before local elections in May when they fielded 44 convicted terrorists as candidates, including seven found guilty of murder.Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists have, for their part, raised alarm about their conservative opponents’ extremist allies in the Vox party. Vox could become the first far-right party to enter government since the Franco dictatorship if, as expected, the leading conservative party wins and needs its support.Mr. Sánchez at a rally in Madrid. “This election is about the partners,” one expert said.Juan Medina/ReutersThe hyper-focus on political bedfellows has obscured a debate about critical issues in Spain such as housing, the economy and employment, as well as the prime minister’s actual record, which includes winning from the European Union a price cap on gas for electricity.“This election is about the partners,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University. “The partners of the right and the partners of the left.” Neither the conservative Popular Party nor Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists have gone up or down radically in support since the last elections, in 2019, and neither are expected to win an absolute majority of Spain’s 350-seat Congress.Instead, the Populist Party and its potential nationalist partners in Vox have used the prime minister’s allies to create a picture of what they call “Sánchismo.” They define it as the prime minister’s self-interested, arrogant and unprincipled impulse to break any promise and make any alliance to stay in power.The main beef is his alliance with pro-independence Catalans. During Spain’s last national election, Mr. Sánchez promised to arrest the leading Catalonian secessionists. But soon after, with his government’s survival depending on their support, he began negotiating their pardons instead.“He succumbed to political pressure and the need to govern the country,” said Gabriel Rufián, a member of Parliament with Esquerra Republicana, a pro-Catalan independence party.Conservatives also frequently recall that Mr. Sánchez once claimed he would not be able to sleep through the night if the far-left Podemos party entered his government. But Mr. Sánchez needed the party, so it did.Since then, Podemos has collapsed and, experts say, its mistakes and overreaches have turned moderate and swing voters to the conservatives. Mr. Sánchez is hoping that a new left-wing umbrella group, Sumar, can make up for the losses, and get him to a threshold where he can again turn to his secessionist allies for support in Parliament.A rally for Sumar in Barcelona. Mr. Sánchez is hoping the new left-wing umbrella group can lift his chances.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesIn an interview on National Spanish Radio on Sunday, Mr. Sánchez said he would, if necessary, seek support from both independence parties again.“Of course,” Mr. Sánchez said. “To carry out a labor reform, I would look for votes, even under the stones. What I will never do is what the PP and Vox have done, which is to cut rights and freedoms, denying sexist violence. I will make deals with whomever I have to, in order to move forward.”Supporters of Mr. Sánchez point out that the negotiations and pardons have greatly reduced tensions with Catalan’s separatist movement, but conservative voters say that the near-secession still leaves a bad taste in their mouth.Even more so, they say they are disgusted by Mr. Sánchez’s dependence on the votes of EH Bildu, the descendants of the political wing of ETA, which killed more than 850 people as it, too, sought to carve out an independent country from Spain.That Basque terrorist group disbanded more than a decade ago, and Spain’s judiciary has deemed Bildu a legitimate and democratic political group. But for many Spaniards it remains tainted by the bloody legacy of the past and concern for the country’s cohesion in the future.Even Mr. Sánchez’s key allies recognized that the right benefited by dictating the terms of the election as a referendum on Bildu.“Their whole campaign is constructed on this,” said Ernest Urtasun, a member of European Parliament and the spokesman for the left-wing Sumar party. “It mobilizes a lot of the electorate on the right and it demobilizes the electorate of the left.”But he said the race was still fluid in its last days and claimed that internal polling showed them inching up. The more the left could stick to social and economic issues, and not its allies, he said, the better its chances.If Mr. Sánchez does require their votes in Parliament to govern, the leaders of the independence movements have made it clear their support will not come for free.There will be an additional “price,” including continued negotiations toward an eventual referendum for Catalonian independence, Mr. Rufián said. He argued that the right wing, and especially Vox, always had a wedge issue to distract voters from real problems and this time it was the Catalans and the Basques.“We can’t be held responsible” for the talking points of the right, Mr. Rufián said.Mr. Rufián said Mr. Sánchez had warned him that Spain was not yet ready to pardon the secessionists and that his coalition would suffer politically if they were granted, but under pressure the prime minister reversed course anyway.“I think it’s good for democracy that political prisoners are not in jail,” he said of the pardons Mr. Sánchez granted. “If there is a penalty for that, I accept that.”But the pardons and the alliances have made it easier for conservative candidates to convince Spain’s voters to judge Mr. Sánchez by the company he keeps.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, has called Mr. Sánchez the “great electoral hope” for “those who used to go around wearing ski masks,” a clear reference to the ETA terrorists. Left-wing leaders have noted that Mr. Feijóo appears to have had dubious personal friends of his own, drawing renewed attention to pictures taken of him hanging out on a yacht with a convicted cocaine trafficker.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, in Madrid. Mr. Feijóo may want to govern alone, but may not be able to.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Feijóo has ducked out of the campaign’s final televised debate, saying he wanted the separatists to be onstage, too. The Socialists believe he was simply pursuing a Rose Garden strategy to avoid questions about his association with the drug kingpin and to distance himself from his nominal ally, the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal.Mr. Feijóo ended up saying he had a bad back.Mr. Feijóo has made it clear that he would prefer to govern alone, without Mr. Abascal. But Mr. Abascal wants in, and has indicated that if Vox entered the government it would crack down hard on any secessionist movements.At a campaign event this month, Mr. Abascal accused Mr. Sánchez of being a liar who made “deals with the enemies of democracy” and added, “As far as Pedro Sánchez is concerned, protecting democracy is about getting the votes of rapists, coup-mongers.”That sort of language is part of the Vox playbook.“Sánchez has a really pathological anxiety for power,” said Aurora Rodil Martínez, the Vox deputy mayor of Elche, who, in a potential preview of things to come, serves with a mayor from the Popular Party. “I think his personality is focused on himself and therefore he has no shame handing himself over to the extreme left, to the heirs of ETA.”She said his allies in the Catalonian independence movement “want to separate themselves from Spain and deny our nation.” Mr. Sánchez, she added, “has got down on his knees” for his far-left allies in Podemos and needed the support of Bildu, “terrorists guilty of bloody crimes.”All of that, experts say, amounted to a distraction from the country’s real challenges.“We are discussing about the partners,” said Mr. Simón, the political scientist, adding, “it’s a terrible thing because we are not discussing about policies.”A poster of the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York Times More

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      How Erdogan Reoriented Turkish Culture to Maintain His Power

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      At the final sundown before the first round of voting in the toughest election of his two-decade rule, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey visited Hagia Sophia for evening prayers — and to remind his voters of just what he had delivered.For nearly a millennium the domed cathedral had been the epicenter of Orthodox Christianity. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it became one of the Islamic world’s finest mosques. In the 1930s, the new Turkish republic proclaimed it a museum, and for nearly a century its overlapping Christian and Muslim histories made it Turkey’s most visited cultural site.President Erdogan was not so ecumenical: In 2020 he converted it back into a mosque. When Turks return to the ballot box this Sunday for the presidential runoff, they will be voting in part on the political ideology behind that cultural metamorphosis.Join the crowds at the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque now, leaving your shoes at the new long racks in the inner narthex, and you can just about glimpse the mosaics of Christ and the Virgin, today discreetly sheathed with white curtains. The famous marble floor has been upholstered with thick turquoise carpet. The sound is more muffled. The light’s brighter, thanks to golden chandeliers. Right at the entrance, in a simple frame, is a presidential proclamation: a monumental swipe at the nation’s secular century, and an affirmation of a new Turkey worthy of its Ottoman heyday.“Hagia Sophia is the crowning of that neo-Ottomanist dream,” said Edhem Eldem, professor of history at Bogazici University in Istanbul. “It’s basically a transposition of political and ideological fights, debates, polemical views, into the realm of a very, very primitive understanding of history and the past.”In the 1930s, the new Turkish republic made Hagia Sophia, which, over the centuries, had been a cathedral and a mosque, into a museum. In 2020 President Erdogan made it a mosque again. Bradley Secker for The New York TimesBradley Secker for The New York TimesBradley Secker for The New York TimesIf the mark of 21st-century politics is the ascendancy of culture and identity over economics and class, it could be said to have been born here in Turkey, home to one of the longest-running culture wars of them all. And for the past 20 years, in grand monuments and on schlocky soap operas, at restored archaeological sites and retro new mosques, Mr. Erdogan has reoriented Turkey’s national culture, promoting a nostalgic revival of the Ottoman past — sometimes in grand style, sometimes as pure kitsch.After surviving a tight first round of voting earlier this month, he is now favored to win a runoff election on Sunday against Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the joint opposition. His resiliency, when poll after poll predicted his defeat, certainly expresses his party’s systematic control of Turkey’s media and courts. (Freedom House, a democracy watchdog organization, downgraded Turkey from “partly free” to “not free” in 2018.) But authoritarianism is about so much more than ballots and bullets. Television and music, monuments and memorials have all been prime levers of a political project, a campaign of cultural ressentiment and national rebirth, that culminated this May on the blue-green carpets beneath Hagia Sophia’s dome.Some mosaics with Christian imagery are now discreetly covered by white curtains.Bradley Secker for The New York TimesOn the eve of the first round of voting President Erdogan visited Hagia Sophia for Maghrib prayers. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO, via ReutersOutside Turkey, this cultural turn is often described as “Islamist,” and Mr. Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., have indeed permitted religious observances that were once banned, such as the wearing of head scarves by women in public institutions. A Museum of Islamic Civilizations, complete with a “digital dome” and light projections à la the immersive Van Gogh Experience, opened in 2022 in Istanbul’s new largest mosque.Yet this election suggests that nationalism, rather than religion, may be the true driver of Mr. Erdogan’s cultural revolution. His celebrations of the Ottoman past — and the resentment of its supposed haters, whether in the West or at home — have gone hand in hand with nationalist efforts unrelated to Islam. The country has mounted aggressive campaigns for the return of Greco-Roman antiquities from Western museums. Foreign archaeological teams have had their permits withdrawn. Turkey stands at the bleak vanguard of a tendency seen all over now, not least in the United States: a cultural politics of perpetual grievance, where even in victory you are indignant.For this country’s writers, artists, scholars and singers, facing censorship or worse, the prospect of a change in government was less a matter of political preference than of practical survival. Since 2013, when an Occupy-style protest movement at Istanbul’s Gezi Park took direct aim at his government, Mr. Erdogan has taken a hard turn to authoritarian rule. Numerous cultural figures remain imprisoned, including the architect Mucella Yapici, the filmmakers Mine Ozerden and Cigdem Mater, and the arts philanthropist Osman Kavala. Writers like Can Dundar and Asli Erdogan (no relation), who were jailed during the purges that followed a failed military coup against Mr. Erdogan in 2016, live in exile in Germany.This election suggests that nationalism, rather than religion, may be the true driver of Mr. Erdogan’s cultural revolution. Bradley Secker for The New York TimesMore than a dozen musical concerts were canceled last year, among them a recital by the violinist Ara Malikian, who is of Armenian descent, and a gig by the pop-folk singer Aynur Dogan, who is Kurdish. The tensions reached a grim crescendo this month, shortly before the first round of voting, when a Kurdish singer was stabbed to death at a ferry terminal after declining to sing a Turkish nationalist song.In the days after the first round of voting, I met with Banu Cennetoglu, one of the country’s most acclaimed artists, whose commemoration of a Kurdish journalist at the 2017 edition of the contemporary art exhibition Documenta won acclaim abroad but brought aggravation at home. “What is scary right now compared to the 90s, which was also a very difficult time, especially for the Kurdish community, is that then we could guess where the evil was coming from,” she told me. “And now it could be anyone. It is much more random.”For the Turkish artist Banu Cennetoglu, Istanbul has become a city of self-censorship. “But even if you don’t speak,” she says, “you can be the next one.”Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesThe strategy has worked. Independent media has shrunk. Self-censorship is rife. “All the institutions within art and culture have been extremely silent for five years,” Ms. Cennetoglu said. “And for me this is unacceptable, as an artist. This is my question: when do we activate the red line? When do we say no, and why?”Nationalism is nothing new in Turkey. “Everybody and his uncle is a nationalist in this country,” Mr. Eldem observed. And the Kemalists — the secular elite who dominated politics here for decades until Mr. Erdogan’s triumph in 2003 — also used nationalist themes to spin culture to their political ends. Turkey’s early cinema glorified the achievements of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Archaeological digs for Hittite antiquities aimed to provide the new republic with a past rooted even more deeply than Greece and Italy.Edhem Eldem at his home in Istanbul. “When it comes to heritage, the uses of the past, he’s not very different from his predecessors,” the historian says. “He’s just more efficient.”Bradley Secker for The New York TimesIn the 2000s, Mr. Erdogan’s blend of Islamism and reformism had Turkey knocking at the door of the European Union. A new Istanbul was being feted in the foreign press. But the new Turkish nationalism has a different cultural cast: proudly Islamic, often antagonistic, and sometimes a little paranoid.One of the signal cultural institutions of the Erdogan years is the Panorama 1453 History Museum, in a working-class district west of Hagia Sophia, where schoolchildren discover the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in a painted cyclorama. At one point, a painting in the round might have been immersion enough. Now it’s been souped up with blaring video projections, a wildly nationalist pageant styled like the video game “Civilization.” Kids can watch Sultan Mehmed II charge toward Hagia Sophia, while his horse rears up in front of a celestial fireball.Visitors to Panorama 1453, a history museum founded in 2009, whose 360-degree mural celebrates the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul.Bradley Secker for The New York TimesAn immersive video animation depicts the Ottoman victory over the Byzantine Empire.Bradley Secker for The New York TimesSultan Mehmed II rears for battle.Bradley Secker for The New York TimesThere’s a similar backward projection in Turkey’s television dramas, which are hugely popular not just here but internationally, with hundreds of millions of viewers throughout the Muslim world, in Germany, in Mexico, all over. On shows such as “Resurrection: Ertugrul,” an international hit about a 13th-century Turkic chieftain, or “Kurulus: Osman,” a “Game of Thrones”-esque Ottoman saga airing every Wednesday here, past and present start to merge.“They are casting the discourse of Tayyip Erdogan in the antique ages,” said Ayse Cavdar, a cultural anthropologist who’s studied these shows. “If Erdogan faces a struggle right now, it is recast in an Ottoman context, a fictional context. In this way, not the knowledge about today’s struggle, but the feeling of it, is spread through society.”A still from “Kurulus: Osman,” starring Burak Ozcivit as Osman I, the first sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish historical dramas are popular not just at home but abroad.ATVIn these half-historical soap operas, the heroes are decisive, brave, glorious, but the polities they lead are fragile, teetering, menaced by outsiders. Ms. Cavdar noted how frequently the TV shows feature leaders of an emerging, endangered state. “As if this guy has not been governing the state for 20 years!” she said.Culture came on the agenda during the runoff, too, as Mr. Erdogan showed up to inaugurate the new home of Istanbul Modern. The president had praise for the new Bosporus-side museum, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano — but he couldn’t help bashing the creations of the previous century, with what he described as a misguided abandonment of the Ottoman tradition.Now, the president promised, an authentic “Turkish century” was about to dawn.Assuming he wins on Sunday, his neo-Ottomanism will have survived its strongest test in two decades. The cultural figures with the most to regret are of course those in prison, but it will also be a bitter outcome for the academics, authors and others who left the country in the wake of Mr. Erdogan’s purges. “A.K.P.’s social engineering can be compared to monoculture in industrial agriculture,” said Asli Cavusoglu, a young artist who recently had a solo show at New York’s New Museum. “There is one type of vegetable they invest in. Other plants — intellectuals, artists — are unable to grow, and that’s why they leave.”Back issues of Agos, the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper edited by Hrant Dink, a journalist assassinated in Istanbul in 2007. His home has been converted into a memorial museum.Bradley Secker for The New York TimesNayat Karakose, coordinator of the museum, in Hrant Dink’s office. “In the past we were able to cooperate more with universities, but now it’s almost impossible,” she said.Bradley Secker for The New York TimesTurkey’s minorities may face the greatest hazards. At the memorial museum for Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian journalist assassinated in 2007, I looked through copies of his independent newspaper and watched footage of his television chat shows, each an admonishment of contemporary Turkey’s constricted freedom of expression. “Civil society actors are becoming more prudent,” said Nayat Karakose, who oversees the museum and is of Armenian descent. “They do events in a more cautious way.”For Mr. Eldem, who has spent his career studying Ottoman history, the reconversion of Hagia Sophia and the “Tudors”-style TV dramas are all of a piece, and are less confident than they seem. “Nationalism is not just glorification,” he said. “It’s also victimization. You can’t have proper nationalism if you’ve never suffered. Because suffering gives you also absolution from potential misconduct.”“So what the naïve Turkish nationalist, and especially neo-Ottomanist nationalist, wants,” he added, “is to bring together the idea of a glorious empire that would have been benign. That’s not a thing. An empire is an empire.”But whether or not Mr. Erdogan wins the election on Sunday, there are headwinds that no amount of cultural nationalism can stand against: above all, inflation and a currency crisis that has bankers and financial analysts flashing a red alert. “In that future, there’s no place for heritage,” Mr. Eldem said. “The Ottomans are not going to save you.”Hagia Sophia has been the epicenter of Orthodox Christianity, one of the Islamic world’s finest mosques and, for decades, a museum that was Turkey’s most visited cultural site. Now it is called the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque.Bradley Secker for The New York Times More

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      Turkey’s Election: What You Need to Know

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      With the economy in crisis, the vote on Sunday is shaping up to be one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s toughest fights to hold onto power in his 20 years as the country’s premier politician.Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey are shaping up to be a referendum on the long tenure of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — the country’s dominant politician over the last two decades.Mr. Erdogan, 69, has led Turkey since 2003, when he became prime minister. At the start, he was widely hailed as an Islamist democrat who promised to make the predominately Muslim country and NATO member a bridge between the Muslim world and the West. But more recently, critics have accused him of mismanaging a deep economic crisis.Now, Mr. Erdogan, who has long staved off challengers with a fiery populist style, finds himself in an extremely tight race as he seeks a third five-year term as president.What’s at stake?At the top of voters’ concerns is the reeling economy. Inflation, which surpassed 80 percent last year but has since come down, has severely eroded their purchasing power.The government has also been criticized for its initially slow response to the catastrophic earthquakes in February, which left more than 50,000 people dead. The natural disaster raised questions about whether the government bore responsibility, in part, for a raft of shoddy construction projects across the country in recent years that contributed to the high death toll.The election could also affect Turkey’s geopolitical position. The country’s relations with the United States and other NATO allies have been strained as Mr. Erdogan has strengthened ties with Russia, even after its invasion of Ukraine last year.When Mr. Erdogan first became prime minister in 2003, many Turks saw him as a dynamic figure who promised a bright economic future. And for many years, his government delivered. Incomes rose, lifting millions of Turks into the middle class as new airports, roads and hospitals were built across the country. He also reduced the power of the country’s secular elite and tamed the military, which had held great sway since Turkey’s founding in 1923.But in more recent years, and especially since he became president in 2014, critics have accused Mr. Erdogan of using the democratic process to enhance his powers, pushing the country toward autocracy.All along, Mr. Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party remained a force at the ballot box, winning elections and passing referendums that allowed Mr. Erdogan to seize even more power, largely with the support of poorer, religiously conservative voters.But economic trouble began around 2014. The value of the national currency eroded, foreign investors fled and, more recently, inflation spiked.A master of self-preservation, Mr. Erdogan earned a reputation for marginalizing anyone who challenged him. After an attempted coup in 2016, his government jailed tens of thousands of people accused of belonging to the religious movement formerly allied with Mr. Erdogan that the government accused of cooking up the plot to oust him. More than 100,000 others were removed from state jobs.Today, Turkey is one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists.After the earthquake, workers cleared rubble from what was an apartment complex in Antakya, Turkey, in February.Emily Garthwaite for The New York TimesWho is running?Mr. Erdogan faces stiff competition from a newly unified opposition that has appealed to voters’ disillusionment with his stewardship of the economy and what they call his push for one-man rule. They are backing a joint candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a retired civil servant who has vowed to restore Turkish democracy and the independence of state bodies like the central bank while improving ties with the West.Mr. Kilicdaroglu is the leader of the Republican People’s Party.Recent polls suggest a slight edge for Mr. Kilicdaroglu, 74, who is campaigning in opposition not only to Erdogan’s polices, but also to his brash style. He has fashioned himself as a steady Everyman and has pledged to retire after one term to spend time with his grandchildren.“The opposition has made a pretty good case that Turks have suffered economically because of Mr. Erdogan’s mismanagement,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a Turkey scholar at the Brookings Institution.Other candidates include Muharrem Ince, who split from the Republican People’s Party to found the Homeland Party. Votes for him and another candidate, Sinan Ogan, could prevent either of the two front-runners from winning an outright majority, which would lead to a runoff on May 28.Kemal Kilicdaroglu is the front-runner among the opposition candidates for president.Sedat Suna/EPA, via ShutterstockWill these elections be free and fair?As in previous elections, Mr. Erdogan has used his expanded presidential powers to try and tilt the playing field in his favor.In recent months, he has increased the minimum wage, boosted civil servant salaries, increased assistance to poor families and changed regulations to allow millions of Turks to receive their government pensions earlier, all to insulate voters from the effects of rising prices.In December, a judge believed to be acting in support of Mr. Erdogan barred the mayor of Istanbul, a potential presidential challenger at the time, from politics after convicting him of insulting public officials. The mayor has remained in office pending appeal.Electoral posters for the Republican People’s Party, or C.H.P., in Kayseri.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThis would not be the first time that potential opponents of Mr. Erdogan have been sidelined.Selahattin Demirtas, of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, ran his presidential campaign from prison in 2018. The Turkish authorities have accused him of affiliation with a terrorist organization, but rights organizations have called his imprisonment politically motivated.Turkey has fought a decades-long battle with Kurdish separatists in the country and considers them terrorists.Mr. Demirtas’ party, the country’s third largest, has come under pressure from the constitutional court in the lead-up to the election. It is now running its campaign under a different party.The news media, largely controlled by private companies loyal to the government, have “worked as loyal propaganda machines,” said Ms. Aydintasbas, saying pro-government journalists have downplayed the economic crisis and trumpeted Mr. Erdogan’s response to the earthquake crisis as heroic.A local official in Antakya counting voting lists and slips ahead of this weekend’s election.Umit Bektas/ReutersWhat’s next?Voters will cast their ballots for the president and Parliament at polls across the country, which will open on Sunday at 8 a.m. local time and close at 5 p.m. Preliminary presidential results are expected later that evening, and parliamentary results on Monday.If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the votes, the election will go to a runoff on May 28.Gulsin Harman More