When the Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington in March 2016, a handful of Armenian-American pickets appeared on the sidewalk beside Massachusetts Avenue, holding signs aloft and chanting about Erdogan’s burgeoning Islamist dictatorship and the Armenian genocide of Christians in Turkey.
While President Erdogan remained inside, a few dozen members of his “security” apparatus stormed out of the Brookings building and, unprovoked, began beating the demonstrators. In due course, several local constables and some Brookings officials managed to stop the assault and compel the “security” men to return indoors. But so far as I am aware, no legal action was taken against the attackers and, certainly, there were no repercussions for Turkey or its embassy staff in Washington, some of whom participated in the assault.
That was especially evident yesterday when Erdogan met with President Trump at the White House–and a multi-ethnic group of Armenian, Kurdish, Greek, and Yazidi pickets appeared in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House, and at the Turkish ambassador’s residence on Embassy Row. The pickets were entirely peaceful, observant of the local regulations about protests, and comparatively few in number. But once again, a small army of Turkish “security” personnel emerged from Turkish Ambassador Serdar Kilic’s official residence, stormed across a thin police line, and beat the picketers.
The carnage continued for several minutes, and as video of the assault makes disturbingly evident, the beatings were severe and protesters were hospitalized. And as video also makes clear, the local police were scarcely able to contain, much less control, the rampaging “security” men. As in March 2016, official Washington–in the form of the Metropolitan Police, District of Columbia prosecutors, and perhaps especially, the Secret Service– has chosen to take no action, and declines comment.
No doubt, Turkey’s status as a onetime Cold War “ally,” and the strategic importance of the U.S. Air Force base at Incirlik, has conferred upon Turkey a certain immunity in these matters. But are we really comfortable with the spectacle of goons from a fascist/Islamist state–including persons shielded by diplomatic immunity–beating peaceful Americans bloody on American streets, and with seeming impunity?
The press, notably CNN and the Washington Post, choose to treat this disturbing pattern as yet another amusing incident in Turkish-Armenian enmity, with “violence” inexplicably breaking out between two sides. But the violence, as all the evidence makes clear, has been entirely one-sided. Nor is it difficult to imagine what would happen if American security personnel misbehaved this way in Turkey. Most troubling of all, the ostensible government in Washington, local and federal, seems intent on protecting not the victims of these assaults but the perpetrators. The State Department has been content to look away, and President Trump is unlikely to have mentioned this transgression to his guest. Who would have guessed that Istanbul Rules–official Turkish violence against innocent Americans on U.S. soil–now apply in Washington.
