“Psychological warfare”: Protest in Turkey: Like a Pokémon became a political issue

A yellow Pokémon as a symbol of resistance? In Turkey, a demonstrator triggered a political debate in a inflatable costume of a Pikachu-Pokémon. On a video divided into a thousand times, you can see how a crowd flee in front of the police in a protest against the removal of the Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu – among them the iconic yellow fantasy, which was invented in Japan in the mid -1990s. According to reports, the video was created in Antalya southern Turkish.

Government-related media tried to present the Pikachu costume as part of a targeted campaign of the opposition. In the broadcaster CNN Türk, protesters were accused of using cute beings as a means of “psychological warfare”. The opposition wants to make the protest appear more likeable and bring more people onto the street. In a detailed discussion, the channel even broadcast a list of alleged “properties” of Pikachus – including the ability to attack enemies with electricity and communicate via lightning.

Since then, many protesters have acquired the Pokémon as a symbol. But criticism also came on the part of the demonstrating. Users on the Internet, for example, complain that the protest is downplayed and presented as a fun event, although there are hundreds of arrests and violence.

Meanwhile, the protests in Turkey continue. Since the arrest and removal of the Mayor of Istanbul, tens of thousands of people have been on the streets nationwide. In Istanbul alone, there were hundreds of thousands of people on Sunday. According to the Ministry of the Interior, almost 2000 people have so far been arrested, several hundred were custody.