The Turkish government started a two-week nationwide lockdown to control the pandemic April 29.

The total shutdown, running from mid-Ramadan to the end of the Eid holiday, calls for all nonessential workers to stay at home and all nonessential transactions to be curtailed. Residents can leave their houses for the closest store. Even emergency travel technically requires a permit. Yet, as the shutdown started, images of travel permits issued to AKP members leaked to the press, raising questions about who is allowed to travel and how those travel documents can be acquired. 

The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives but the way that it's being managed starkly highlighted the double standard for the AKP elite and the rest of the country. Ordinary Turkish residents are bombarded each night with new and updated decrees that directly impact their lives. Turkey has been ruled by decree for some time, but lately everyone has had to experience the confusion and arbitrariness firsthand. 

In the first days of the lockdown, no one knew what to expect. The minister of interior’s statement that alcohol sales would be banned led to a rise in alcohol sales, probably for the first time ever during Ramadan. The confusion was exquisitely captured in the words of a police officer as he issued fines at a grocery store: “There is no written ban, but it was said on the news.”