1 Mayıs neighborhood, located in the Ümraniye district of Istanbul, is officially known as Mustafa Kemal neighborhood, a name later imposed by the state, but it is still referred to by its original name by the local people. The neighborhood’s history is closely tied to the revolutionary movement’s efforts to unite with the people and work for their benefit. Founded by revolutionaries, the neighborhood has now become a place heavily affected by gangs, a corrupt culture, and special warfare practices.

Although the revolutionary spirit can still be felt to some extent, the neighborhood is no longer the powerful force it once was. Due to the state’s long-standing implementation of special warfare tactics, it has increasingly lost its revolutionary identity and fallen into moral decline.

Folk bars, music halls, and moral decay

The Turkish state's special warfare practices first targeted the neighborhood, already struggling with poverty, by planting the seeds of moral decay. In the 2000s, just like in other impoverished neighborhoods, 1 Mayıs neighborhood saw the opening of cafés, pubs, music halls, and folk bars. The doors of homes built brick by brick with the blood of revolutionaries began to close to those same revolutionaries. People began tearing down the humble homes they had built on land once given to them by revolutionaries, replacing them with multi-story buildings. Houses that revolutionaries could once enter freely were now being rented back to them. Not stopping there, the Turkish state also began taking deliberate steps to alter the neighborhood’s demographic structure. During the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), people affiliated with the government were deliberately relocated to 1 Mayıs neighborhood, which has a predominantly Kurdish and Alevi population. These individuals were helped to open businesses, and efforts were also made to place pro-government figures in the local cemevi, a place of worship and cultural significance for the Alevi community.

The 2000s marked a turning point, when the corruption of 1 Mayıs neighborhood became visibly clear and intensified. The state aimed to divert young people away from revolutionary associations and parties toward these newly opened cafés. At the same time, it offered them fast paths to earning money, exploiting their economic hardship. While doing all of this, the state continued its pressure against revolutionaries, carried out operations against revolutionary structures and the Kurdish Freedom Movement, and did not allow revolutionaries to organize openly in the neighborhood. Interestingly, while intensifying its crackdown on revolutionaries and the Kurdish Freedom Movement, the state also ensured that many of the newly opened cafés had a “socialist” appearance. The pressure on the Kurdish Freedom Movement, then the most prominent force organizing in the neighborhood, was especially severe during this period.

The first step of the special warfare operations was to establish spaces that would prevent youth from becoming politicized. The second step was to introduce drugs and promote prostitution. These initial efforts were not implemented directly in 1 Mayıs neighborhood, but in the adjacent areas. Already stigmatized in the public eye as a criminalized zone, the neighborhood gradually fell under the control of drug and prostitution gangs. Armed state forces facilitated this, working to ensure that these criminal elements would find a foothold in 1 Mayıs neighborhood. However, two major uprisings disrupted this plan. The first was the Gezi uprising. The second was the Kobanê uprising, known publicly as the events of October 6–8 and the wave of democratic self-administration resistance that emerged in Kurdistan and resonated deeply across Turkey.

The years that halted special warfare: 2013–2016

May 2013 marked a period of significant developments in Turkey. The nationwide uprising known as the Gezi resistance also made its impact felt in 1 Mayıs neighborhood. Residents of the neighborhood organized marches and protests against the government’s policies. During these protests, a citizen named Mehmet Ayvalıtaş was killed. The demonstrations and actions lasted for about a month, during which revolutionary organizing began to regain strength in the neighborhood. However, this momentum was short-lived. The revolutionary groups failed to read the process correctly, and old habits of internal power struggles once again caused this newly opened space to close. Yet what reignited the revolutionary spirit in favor of the people was a statement made by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the border of Kobanê: “Kobanê has fallen, and it will fall.” In response, the Kurdish Freedom Movement launched massive demonstrations across Turkey and Kurdistan in defense of the Kobanê resistance. Numerous actions also took place in 1 Mayıs neighborhood. The Kobanê uprising and the wave of democratic self-administration resistance that followed in Kurdistan found their echoes in Turkey, opening a new path for revolutionary struggle, especially in neighborhoods like 1 Mayıs.

However, the revolutionary momentum that had grown after the Kobanê resistance faced new suppression in 2016. Following the failed coup attempt on July 15, the Turkish state, citing power struggles between ruling factions, launched massive operations to regain control over neighborhoods where revolutionaries were strong. While suffocating revolutionary organizing on one hand, the state also accelerated efforts to corrupt these areas. In 1 Mayıs neighborhood, as in many other impoverished, politically active communities, this period marked a sharp rise in moral decay. A local resident, born and still living in 1 Mayıs neighborhood, described the post-2016 changes as follows: “After the coup attempt on July 15, revolutionaries could no longer operate. It was a time when many who had previously worked with revolutionary organizations began to change. Some were imprisoned, some had to flee into exile, and some of those who remained started focusing on making money. Suddenly, shops running illegal betting operations began popping up around the neighborhood. This was something we hadn’t seen before. And those running these businesses started profiting. While these illegal betting shops were opening, we also saw some people who used to be part of revolutionary groups now working in parking lot management and similar jobs. Before long, we started hearing about gangs formed by these so-called ‘former revolutionaries.’ After that, everything started to unravel.”

The rise of illegal betting, gambling and gangs

Those who made more money than expected from illegal betting operations quickly formed gangs, and their next step was to arm themselves in order to overpower rival groups. With weapons purchased using illicit earnings, firearms began circulating widely within the neighborhood. As gang activity intensified, a new trend of extorting local businesses emerged. The first justification these gangs gave for collecting extortion money from neighborhood residents was that they were “protecting the area from fascists or from drug and prostitution gangs.” Yet this claim was never fulfilled, as the state had already facilitated the introduction of drugs into the neighborhood. As in many other neighborhoods, drugs first entered 1 Mayıs neighborhood through outside dealers and were distributed by high school and even middle school students. For impoverished youth already facing exclusion and humiliation, and with little hope for the future, drug use began as a form of escape. Later, they discovered that selling drugs was far more profitable than working in any regular job.

Alongside the spread of drugs came another form of moral collapse: prostitution. Initially limited to areas near the neighborhood, prostitution has now entered private homes within 1 Mayıs. Students who had been introduced to drugs were later pushed into prostitution to fund their addiction. A resident who was once active in revolutionary circles described the situation this way: “When the revolutionaries and Kurds pulled back, the gangs took over. Sure, the state attacks us, it does everything it can, but you could have kept organizing. Today, the neighborhood is completely in the hands of gangs. I could name many of them. Most of them are former revolutionaries. The rest spend all their time hanging around associations, occasionally selling a magazine, that’s it. Revolutionaries haven’t held a single effective action in a long time. You can’t blame this only on repression. We were organizing even in the 1990s. People have lost trust in revolutionaries.”

The full-scale spread of drugs in the neighborhood began in the latter part of 2016. Those profiting from illegal betting, overwhelmed by the volume of money, began arming themselves and operating in groups. One resident explained how illegal betting typically works: “It usually starts with opening a small shop, like a convenience store or a kiosk. At first, legal betting games are offered there. When people come to play legal games, some of them, those seen as trustworthy, are told that they can make more money through unregistered betting. Then, illegal bets are taken on certain football matches, horse races, and so on. Sometimes they even hand out money to attract more people to these games.”

The vast profits from illegal betting eventually pushed people to expand into other ventures, the most profitable of which was drug trafficking. Most of those involved in betting eventually began dealing drugs. For youth already stuck in poverty and cut off from once-influential revolutionary circles, the lure of drugs was all too accessible. The first gang to enter the drug trade in 1 Mayıs neighborhood was the Barış Boyun gang, a name that would soon become infamous. What began with high school students now extends to children in elementary school. Every new drug released into the market is first tested on these youth in the neighborhood. To ensure young people develop a dependency, the drugs are often distributed almost for free in the beginning.

Another form of decay fueled by drugs: the spread of prostitution

As the drug trade expanded, prostitution rings also began to grow in the neighborhood. Their earliest targets were once again high school and middle school students. Young people who had become addicted to drugs were pushed into prostitution in order to fund their addiction. Today, prostitution is taking place in private homes throughout 1 Mayıs neighborhood. In many cases, appointments are arranged over the phone, and women, often controlled by gangs, are forcibly taken to designated locations by gang affiliates.

The presence of prostitution gangs has become visibly widespread. High school girls and young women are lured into prostitution through calculated tactics used by gang members and special warfare agents. In a neighborhood burdened by poverty and marginalization, young people stripped of their identities and denied a future are now being drawn into prostitution at ages as young as those falling into drug addiction. A local resident described one of the most well-known methods used by gangs and special warfare actors: “They first start a relationship with women, then secretly record their intimate moments. After that, they threaten to release the video if the women refuse to engage in prostitution. Some women who are addicted to drugs are also forced into prostitution to pay for their addiction. There are known houses where prostitution happens, and the police know about them too but they never take any action.”

State pressure against gang activity has remained minimal, limited to a few superficial operations. Today in 1 Mayıs neighborhood, there are dozens of gangs with names like “Samuray,” “Casperlar,” and “Barış Boyun.” Some extort local shopkeepers or rob those who refuse to pay, while others increasingly turn to drug trafficking as their primary source of income.

Drugs and prostitution have now spread across the entire neighborhood. Backed by the power of the police, gangs act without fear. At the same time, the withdrawal of revolutionary organizations has left the people of 1 Mayıs neighborhood feeling utterly abandoned.