As Capital's Global Guardians Arrive — A Chronicle of Ankara's 'Preventive' Siege and Arrests

The 36th NATO Summit of Heads of State and Government, scheduled for Ankara on July 7–8, 2026, will not only host the leaders of the imperialist war machine; it will also serve as litmus paper for how the rulers wage a structural "internal security" war against their own people.

For the ordinary person in the street—for our worker comrades—to grasp what the capital is facing, and to connect this siege to the order of exploitation, we must lay out from the very beginning how the process began, on what timetable it was executed, and where it sits dialectically, with all its absurdities and details in full view. What we face is not a momentary security operation; it is a planned step of annihilation taken by the ruling class to curry favor with global masters.

Chronological Siege: A Step-by-Step History of the Operation and Its Theater of Absurdity

Stage 1: June 22, 2026 — The Iron Curtain Descends (Ban on Actions)

The process began two weeks before the summit with a bureaucratic move. Citing the NATO Summit, the Ankara Governor's Office declared a 13-day ban on actions, marches, and protests across the city. While the city's squares, parks, and streets were closed to the people's voice, the first legal brick was laid in the capitalist state's search for a "sterile zone" for the summit. The aim was to offer global capitalism's actors a smooth, protest-free, thornless rose garden.

Stage 2: June 23, 2026 — Dawn Raids and the Criminalization of Class Solidarity

The morning after the action ban, on orders from the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, counter-terrorism units moved. Custody orders were issued for 241 people, and more than 200 were taken in home raids. Among those detained were academics, journalists, lawyers, and—most strikingly—TEMA Foundation volunteers who had devoted their lives to the green of this land.

The reason TEMA members were thrown into this sack was, in fact, the most organic form of what the capitalist order fears most: "class solidarity."

• Under the leadership of TEMA Foundation Ankara Provincial Representative Nevzat Özer, environmental volunteers were returning to Ankara from a nature trip to the Nallıhan Bird Paradise.
• On the same road they encountered Doruk Mining workers marching on Ankara because their rights had been seized. Those defending nature got off their bus, waved to the miners coming up from underground, greeted them, chatted for two minutes, and wished them success.
• The handshake between environmentalists and miners, between intellectuals and workers, entered the state's radar because it was a dangerous awakening capable of stopping the wheels of exploitation. After this greeting the bus was stopped, and these people were taken from their homes at dawn in a "terror" operation.

Stage 3: June 24–25, 2026 — Collective Delusion in the Interrogation Room

Interrogations of those held at Ankara Police Headquarters were filled with tragicomic scenes proving the bankruptcy of bourgeois law and that security units had no concrete evidence in their hands. Before them stood a gray-haired crowd ranging in age from 50 to 80.

• "Do You Know the Name of the Organization?" In interrogation, people in their seventies who had never held a slingshot in their lives were asked, "What code name do you use within the TKP/ML terrorist organization?", "Did you receive armed training?", and most absurd of all, "Do you know the name of the organization you are alleged to belong to?" We were facing a police mind so stunned that it asked the person it accused of a crime for the name of the organization.
• Bullying in Academia: At police headquarters, respected Ankara University Faculty of Political Science economist Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emel Memiş was pressured with the question, "Do you wish to benefit from effective remorse?" The professor rejected this bullying, saying, "I did not join any terrorist organization—remorse for what?"
• Catch-All Investigation: Journalist Yıldız Tar, Editor-in-Chief of Kaos GL, was questioned not about NATO or any terrorist organization, but about "statements regarding Family Year policies"—matters serving entirely the ruling power's ideological agenda. The operation had turned into a catch-all sweep throwing every dissenting voice into a single sack.

Stage 4: June 25–26, 2026 — A Mass Wave of Arrests Based on "Possibilities"

Of the 135 people referred to the judiciary after police processing, 129 were sent to criminal judges of peace with requests for arrest. The following admission in the prosecutor's referral summarized the philosophy of the process:

"...in the effort to have Turkey associated with terror, that they could carry out a terror act..."

In other words, there was no exploded bomb, no committed act, no prepared banner! There was only a "possibility" produced in the state's mind. The ruling class, so that not a single blemish would appear when NATO chiefs passed through Ankara's avenues, was punishing people in advance on the basis of the "possibility that they might act."

As a result, 103 people, including Emel Memiş, Yıldız Tar, Nevzat Özer, and lawyers from the Contemporary Lawyers Association (ÇHD), were arrested and sent to prison; 26 were released under house arrest.

A Revolutionary Analysis of This History: "Preventive Law" and Class Terror

This wave of aggression, beginning with the governor's ban on June 22 and escalating to the arrest of 103 honorable people, cannot be squeezed into the bracket of ordinary "public order" or a "security measure." What we face is the naked expression of the ruling class's structural crisis, its dependency relations with imperialism, and above all a deep class terror (class fear).

Revolutionary theory and the dialectical method show us three fundamental structural truths behind this custody and arrest terror:

The Class Character of the State and the Unmasking of "Preventive Law"

Lenin, in The State and Revolution, clearly establishes that the state is a product of the irreconcilability of contradictions between classes and an apparatus of coercion by one class over another. In peaceful, stable periods the bourgeois state hides this coercive character behind ideological illusions such as "rule of law," "impartial judiciary," and "public security."

The "preventive law" used in this Ankara operation and the prosecutor's thesis of "the possibility that they could carry out an act" have torn the legitimacy mask of bourgeois law to pieces.

• The Objectification of Crime: Criminal law historically looks at the "act." If there is no act, no harm, there is no crime. But when the mechanism of "enemy criminal law" is activated, the state does not wait for the act to be committed; it targets the "potential offender" directly.
• The Hypothesis of the Future: To offer global finance capital and war barons a thornless rose garden at the NATO Summit in early July, the ruling class has preemptively thrown into prison everyone who might pose a risk of raising their voice. This is law turned into a "cleanup scoop" in the service of the model of capital accumulation and imperialist commitments.

The Masters' Nightmare: The Synthesis of Class Consciousness and the Collapse of Compartments

The most distinctive link in this operation—and the one that must be emphasized—is undoubtedly the arrest of TEMA Foundation volunteers aged between 50 and 80, thrown into the sack of an "armed terrorist organization." What drives ruling politics into this collective delusion, reducing them to the point of comedy even in bourgeois legal terms? Class terror.

The capitalist order divides the foci of social opposition into compartments (separate cells) in order to govern the masses. It squeezes environmentalists into the bracket of "trees and birds" alone; confines workers to "wage trade unionism" alone; traps academics in ivory towers. The greatest danger for the order is the collapse of the walls between these compartments and the sprouting of organic class solidarity.

• Consciousness of the Metabolic Rift: Marx says that capitalism both exploits the worker and plunders nature, creating a "metabolic rift" between humanity and nature. The encounter of nature defenders returning from the Nallıhan Bird Paradise with Doruk Mining workers marching for their rights, and their greeting them, is precisely the moment this rift rises to consciousness.
• The Dangerous Synthesis: The capitalist order was horrified by gray-haired aunts defending soil and leaves shaking hands with calloused-handed miners coming up from underground. Because where the defense of nature merges with the defense of labor, a structural critique aimed at the roots of capitalism and a destructive revolutionary potential begins. The force that threw Tuğba Kiper, one of the republic's first women engineers at age 79, into a cell is the fear of the great explosion this class synthesis would produce.

The Dialectical Bond Between Imperialism and Internal Fascization

These pre-summit arrests prove that imperialism is not merely a matter of "foreign policy," but the fundamental dynamic determining the fascization of internal politics and the state apparatus in dependent capitalist countries.

• A Report to Global Masters: In Turkey of 2026, dominant politics, struggling in the whirlpool of economic crisis, must offer assurance to international capital. These arrests are a "loyalty and public order" report submitted to Western imperialism and NATO chiefs.
• The Domestic Mirror of the War Concept: NATO is an organization of attack and occupation on a global scale. This bloody apparatus gathering in Ankara by its nature demands a totalitarian, repressive, anti-democratic regime at home as well. Those who plan wars beyond the borders are obliged to preemptively crush every dynamic element at home that could oppose that war, exploitation, and plunder. Thus the arrest of TEMA members, of Professor Emel Memiş, or of Yıldız Tar is the direct reflection on Ankara's streets of NATO's structural violence.

Revolutionary Memory Note: The bourgeoisie acts out of fear to delay its own historical end. The "preventive terror" applied in Ankara today shows not the strength of the rulers but how much they fear even the smallest spark of social opposition (a greeting, a nature trip), how fragile they are. Those whose eyes are blinded by class terror, caricaturing the law, are in fact accelerating the historical laws that prepare their own end.

The Fear of Compartments Collapsing

The greatest threat for the capitalist order is the collapse of the walls between social segments. When the environmentalist steps out of her shell and touches the workers' concrete struggle, when the defense of nature merges with the defense of labor, it means an uncontrollable social wave for the bourgeoisie. Throwing TEMA volunteer Tuğba Kiper, one of the republic's first women engineers at age 79, into prison is the work of this fear. Ms. Kiper's words in court struck the rulers like a slap:

"I am a 79-year-old citizen. My signature is on this country's highways. I joined the TEMA Foundation because I love nature and children. What business do I have with terror? Since when is greeting workers seeking their rights on the way back from a nature trip counted as membership in an armed organization? You cannot do this to the people of this country!"

If the Masters Have Weapons, the People Have Righteousness

Those trying to create a pre-storm silence over Ankara are in fact trying to suppress the echo of their own fears. The chiefs of the global war machine who will set foot in this city on July 7–8, 2026, come with a bloody history of exploitation behind them and the balance sheets of billion-dollar arms monopolies in their hands. Facing them stand the gray-haired TEMA volunteers defending this country's soil, journalists pursuing truth, academics placing science at the people's service, and mining workers marching from hundreds of meters underground to take their rights by force.

This picture symbolizes not the unshakable power of the rulers but a historical and dialectical inevitability: the class fear of the day when those who dispossess will themselves be dispossessed.

NATO Is Not a Security Umbrella but the Armed Office of Capital

Let us once again refute in the clearest form the bourgeois lie drilled into the person in the street: NATO is not a "charity" or defense pact that protects us from external threats and ensures our collective security.

• Its Class Function: NATO is a global gendarmerie tasked with protecting property relations of international finance capital on a world scale. Wherever there is a popular uprising, wherever a will rebels against imperialist monopolies, wherever a step toward nationalization is taken, NATO turns its muzzle toward the people.
• Its Domestic Devastation: The postponement of exams in Ankara's streets today, life brought to a standstill, and 103 sons and daughters of the homeland preemptively thrown into prison are the direct domestic devastation of this bloody machine. Those who plan occupations beyond the borders must preemptively paralyze every democratic and class dynamic at home that could obstruct those plans. Dependency on imperialism inevitably produces fascization and hostility to the people at home.

Legitimacy Is in the Street!

The ruling class may have the police, the judiciary, the prisons, and the loyalist media. They may unleash all the physical violence of the state apparatus upon us. Yet historical materialism teaches us that no apparatus of coercion can keep an exploitation order that has historically outlived its time standing forever.

The Dialectical Law of History: Righteousness and legitimacy lie not in the sealed papers of bourgeois courts but in the calloused hand of the Doruk Mining worker seeking his rights, in the conscience of the TEMA volunteer protecting Nallıhan's soil, and in the honorable stance of Professor Emel Memiş, who refuses to sell science to capital. Physical force is temporary; but the people's righteousness fused with class consciousness is lasting and transformative.

What Must Be Done Now? Time to Grow Organized Anger

The ultimate aim of our writings, our analyses, and our words in the street cannot be limited to exposing this rot. It is not enough to interpret the world; one must change it. The way to break this siege is to expand the common front by tearing down the walls of fear the rulers want to imprison us within.

• Break the Compartments: Environmentalists will keep planting saplings but will also recognize the miner's rights as their own. Academics will decode the rulers' lies from their podiums; journalists will not retreat from writing the truth behind the barricades.
• Give No Passage to NATO and Its Collaborators: Against those who want to hand Ankara over to imperialism's war barons, we will shout in every street, every factory, every neighborhood that the real owner of this city and this country is the working class and the laboring people.

They may have tanks, helicopters, the NATO they serve, and a cowardly judiciary mechanism that preemptively imprisons its own people. But we have unbending wrists, a righteousness that no cell can contain, and organized anger that will overturn this world of exploitation.

Salute to our honorable intellectuals and nature defenders in the prisons!

Down with imperialism, down with NATO — long live a fully independent Turkey of labor!