Daughter of Jailed Turkish Political Adviser Pushes for His Release

The daughter of jailed Turkish political consultant Necati Özkan is preparing to launch a new organization to help push for her father’s release. 

Selin Özkan, a United Kingdom-based media executive, and Brazil-based political consultant Bruno Hoffmann, who’s also leading the effort, told Campaigns & Elections that the goal of the Global Alliance for Political Consultants is to oppose the persecution of political practitioners worldwide. 

Her father’s arrest last year on charges of corruption, Selin Özkan said, underscores the risks that consultants face for simply doing their jobs. 

“We have to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone – that we should protect each other and protect the rights of our colleagues to do their profession freely and ethically,” she said.

The project is still in its early stages. Selin Özkan and Hoffmann said that they have been reaching out to other groups, like the International Association of Political Consultants, in an effort to rally support for the GAPC. Finer details, like the organization’s governance structure, are still in the works, they said.

A slidedeck prepared by Hoffmann and shared with C&E describes the GAPC as “a professional coalition of political consultants who cooperate internationally, share best practices, and protect the profession’s freedom and standards.” 

Özkan’s Arrest

Necati Özkan, a longtime political operative in Turkey, was arrested last March along with more than 100 others – including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a top rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – in what was widely seen as a broad crackdown on the country’s political opposition. 

Özkan has been held since then in a high-security prison on charges of corruption. Prosecutors filed separate espionage charges against Imamoglu and Özkan last fall. Özkan has maintained his innocence in the cases, while Turkish authorities have insisted that the charges aren’t politically motivated.

Selin Özkan said that she travels to Turkey every month to visit her father in prison and has kept in touch with him by writing letters. He’s doing well, she said, and is focused on writing what he calls “letters of truth,” laying out the case against the charges he’s facing.

“He’s very strong,” Selin Özkan said. “Everyone who’s met my dad can kind of see that. Something like this can’t bring him down.” 

Hoffmann, the CEO of Esplanada Strategic Communication in Brasília, said he was motivated to launch the GAPC by what Necate Özkan’s arrest and prosecution represent for the broader business of politics. 

“As far as I’m concerned, someone that is serious, that is linked with associations, someone that is respected by political consultants all over the world – he’s being kept in jail just for doing what he does,” Hoffmann said. “That’s what it is. He’s good at what he does and whoever is in power didn’t like it – didn’t want him to keep doing it.”

A Global Issue

Özkan’s arrest has drawn international criticism, including from the IAPC, which awarded him its annual Democracy Medal in absentia last year. Yet Selin Özkan said she hopes to bring more attention to her father’s case, especially in Europe and the U.S., where media coverage of the arrests in Turkey has been scant.

The persecution of political consultants isn’t common in Europe and the U.S., she said, but said that the issue demands more attention and solidarity from political practitioners in the West – especially in the current political climate.

“Europeans and Americans are so lucky that they have so many institutions that protect their citizens from being under threat like this,” Selin Özkan said. “But those institutions are now under threat, as well. So this is the right moment to launch something like this and highlight the values of the rule of law and all the institutions that protect everyone.”

Hoffmann said that there’s enormous potential in uniting political consultants in a single forum. Political professionals, he said, have deep influence and connections, and those connections can be leveraged to raise awareness and bring about change.

“When political consultants get together, we can move mountains,” Hoffmann said.