Turkey protests after political rival jailed: BBC Learning English from the News

From BBC Learning English.

This is Learning English from the News, our podcast about the news headlines.

In this programme:

Seventh day of protests in Turkey after president's main rival jailed.

Hello, I'm Georgie.

And I'm Phil.

In this programme we look at one big news story

and the vocabulary in the headlines that will help you understand it.

You can find all the vocabulary and headlines from this episode,

as well as a worksheet on our website,

bbclearningenglish.com.

So let's hear more about this story.

Ekrem Imamoglu, mayor of Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city,

has been jailed on corruption charges.

Since then, there have been seven days of protests leading

to violent clashes between protesters and the authorities.

Imamoglu is seen as the main political rival to President Erdogan,

who has been either president or prime minister since 2003.

Since being jailed, the main opposition party in the country,

declared Imamoglu their candidate for the 2028 presidential election.

His university degree had recently been annulled,

that's cancelled, which means he's not allowed to stand for election.

Let's have our first headline.

This one is from the BBC: Sixth night of protests in Turkey

as Erdogan hits out at unrest

That headline again.

Sixth night of protests in Turkey as Erdogan hits out at unrest.

And that's from the BBC.

So this headline is from yesterday.

It's about the protests and the reaction of President Erdogan.

Erdogan has described the protests as 'evil' and has blamed opposition parties.

He's criticised the protests,

and that gives us the expression we're learning here:

'hit out at'.

Hit can mean something like punch, strike someone hard with your hand.

But when we use hit out at, it's much more likely to be a metaphor.

Yes, it means to strongly or angrily criticise.

Here it's describing Erdogan's criticism of the protests.

We can use it in a lot of different contexts.

Politicians often hit out at their opponents.

Customers might hit out

at a company that they think has given them bad service.

Now, if someone hits out at you, you might want to hit back.

That means respond, again in a strong or angry way.

So we've had hit out at - criticise strongly.

For example, businesses have hit out at the government's plans.

This is Learning English from the News,

our podcast about the news headlines.

Today we're talking about the protests that have spread across Turkey

following the jailing of Istanbul's mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu.

International responses to these moves by Erdogan

have not been particularly strong.

A statement from the EU said that it 'raises questions',

but they did not condemn the action, while the US State Department consider

that it's an internal issue for Turkey.

And our next headline suggests

why the international reaction has not been more severe.

This is from Bloomberg.

Erdogan bets world will turn a blind eye to turmoil in Turkey.

And that headline again.

Erdogan bets world will turn a blind eye to turmoil in Turkey.

And that's from Bloomberg.

Now the expression we're going to learn here is 'turn a blind eye to'.

It's a metaphor.

So imagine that you have one eye that you can see with and one that is blind.

If you choose to turn your blind eye towards a problem,

then you are choosing not to see what is happening.

So we used to turn a blind eye to to mean ignore something bad.

So what this headline is saying is that Erdogan is predicting

that the rest of the world will choose to ignore the turmoil. Here

that means the protests in Turkey.

We often use turn a blind eye to to mean ignore someone doing something wrong.

Yeah. So if someone thinks that something is only a minor crime,

they might turn a blind eye to it.

A parent or teacher might warn someone doing something wrong by saying,

I'll turn a blind eye to it this time, but it needs to stop.

We often use it in the negative.

For example, we need to stop turning a blind eye,

or I can't turn a blind eye to this,

which means we shouldn't or can't ignore something.

We've had to turn a blind eye to - ignore something bad.

For example,

Phil, I've been turning a blind eye to your lateness for far too long.

You need to start arriving on time. Sorry.

This is Learning English from the News, our podcast about the news headlines.

Today we're talking about protests which have followed the jailing

of Ekrem Imamoglu.

Some people have criticised Imamoglu's arrest, saying that it's an attempt

by Erdogan to remove a possible rival for the presidency.

The president has been criticised for restricting political opponents

and concentrating power in his own hands.

And that's the view of the writer of our third headline.

And this is from Jacobin:

Turkey's authoritarian turn.

And that headline again from Jacobin: Turkey's authoritarian turn.

We're looking at the expression authoritarian turn.

Yes, authoritarian is an adjective that describes a system of government

that has strong rules and a strong leader who allows little opposition.

If you turn physically, you change direction towards something.

Yeah. So an authoritarian turn means a movement towards authoritarianism.

The author of this article believes that Turkey is becoming more authoritarian.

We can use the noun 'turn' like this

with different adjectives, often those related to politics.

We can talk about a democratic turn,

a humanitarian turn, a nationalist turn, and many others.

They all mean change towards the situation described by the adjective.

We had authoritarian turn - a movement

towards authoritarian government. For example,

The trend towards strong national leaders is evidence

of a growing authoritarian turn across the world.

That's it for this episode of Learning English from the News.

We'll be back next week with another news story.

If you've enjoyed this programme, try the worksheet on our website

to test what you've learned: visit bbclearningenglish.com.

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Bye for now. Goodbye.