In 2013, protests erupted in the heart of Istanbul after police responded brutally to a protest over the government’s planned redevelopment of Gezi Park, one of the few remaining green spaces in central Istanbul. The international community roundly criticized Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Several died after being beaten or shot by police. In what was in hindsight a dry run for his post-coup purge, Erdogan rounded up hundreds.

In the wake of this past month’s protests, Erdogan joined anti-American dictators in Iran, Russia, and China to chastise the United States for alleged systematic racism. Erdogan openly employs a troll army to push his pronouncements and target critics at home and abroad. While Twitter recently purged several thousand Turkish trolls, they appear to be just a drop in the bucket. Many Erdogan supporters have argued that the U.S. has no right to criticize Turkey because the events in Minneapolis and the subsequent riots elsewhere show moral equivalence between what Erdogan did and what the Trump administration, state governments, and municipalities around the country have done.