Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

Closure Case of AKP in Economist

The Economist analyzes the closure case against the AK Party in an editorial article titled with ‘See you in court’. The following is the excerpt from Economist regarding the case.

Article: See You in Court
Autocratic regimes in the Muslim world often ban religious parties, which then go underground and turn violent.

Turkey’s Islamists have taken a different path. Despite being repeatedly outlawed and ejected from power, pious politicians have shunned violence, embraced democracy and moved into the mainstream.

No Islamic party has been as moderate and pro-Western as the Justice and Development (AK) party, which catapulted into government in 2002 promising to lead Turkey into the European Union.

Yet the country’s secular elite is still fighting to oust the AK government, on thinly supported charges that it wants to wreck Ataturk’s secular republic. A senior prosecutor has made the charges official, by asking the constitutional court to shut AK down because it has become “a centre for anti-secular activities”. In a 162-page indictment, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya argued that AK is using democracy as a vehicle for imposing sharia law. He asked the court to slap a five-year ban on more than 70 AK officials, including the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gul.

The court, dominated by pro-secular judges, said it would decide by April whether to proceed with the case. Already jittery financial markets have taken fright. On March 17th the Istanbul Stock Exchange plunged by 7.5% and the Turkish lira fell by 3.5% against the dollar. Should the court decide to take up the case, the battle could last for a year, pushing Turkey into a prolonged period of instability, hampering reforms and jeopardising membership talks with the EU.

Mindful of all this, TUSIAD, the main business lobby, has denounced the case. “Shutting down parties is not compatible with democracy,” said its president, Arzuhan Yalcindag. America and the EU have also rushed to AK’s defence. A combative Mr Erdogan has opined that AK’s legal woes will only raise its popularity. He is probably right. The most recent challenge to AK rule came a year ago when he nominated Mr Gul for the presidency. The prospect of a president whose wife wore the Islamic headscarf and who would not veto AK-inspired laws galvanised the generals into threatening a coup. Many believe the army’s meddling helped AK to a bigger share of the vote (47%) in last July’s election. So why has the prosecutor chosen to act against AK now?

Some see it as a last-ditch attempt by Turkey’s old guard to cling to power. A new and pious class of Anatolian entrepreneurs, who have thrived under AK, is challenging the elite. One such group, Calik, which employs Mr Erdogan’s son-in-law, has acquired a media conglomerate, whose assets include a television channel, ATV, and the third-biggest daily, Sabah. “The reign of the Bosporus princes is over,” says a Western banker.

Ertugrul Gunay, the culture minister, has another explanation. He believes the case is connected to recent arrests of generals, academics and journalists linked to a string of murders, including that of an ethnic-Armenian editor, Hrant Dink (known as Ergenekon). Proponents of this theory note that Turkey’s first Islamist-led government was ejected in 1997 after it began investigating links between the army and organised crime. Another theory is that the case was prompted by AK’s efforts to ease the strict secular ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities. This move is cited in Mr Yalcinkaya’s indictment. Other “evidence” is said to range from the AK-run Istanbul council’s censoring of bikini ads to an AK official’s observation that “asking a pious girl to remove her headscarf is akin to telling an uncovered one to remove her underpants”.

It is hardly the stuff of an Islamic revolution. Yet even AK’s closest allies agree that Mr Erdogan should have done more to reach out to secular opponents. On the headscarf, he might have worked harder to protect the rights of women who choose not to cover their heads. He might also have scrapped Article 301 of the penal code, which has been used to prosecute scores of Turkish writers and academics for “insulting Turkishness”. With much of Mr Yalcinkaya’s case built on things that the prime minister and his lieutenants have said, Mr Erdogan should see the value of free speech. His secular opponents, meanwhile, would do better if they left their ivory towers and spent more time with the ordinary people of Turkey.

Note: You can read more about the case from Turkish Democracy under Test

Closure Case for AKP

As explained in Turkish Democracy Under Test, the closure case for the leading AKP has triggered many debates in Turkey.

There are different views circulating in Turkey about what kind of a stance the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) should adopt in the wake of the closure case recently opened against it.

According to media reports, the AKP is working on a constitutional amendment that will make party closures harder. But its plans have met with criticism from some circles who say such a step should not be taken when the judicial process is in progress.

Nevertheless, there is a general consensus that party closures should be made harder in Turkey, regardless of the AK Party case, and that the current situation is a good opportunity to take the necessary steps to this end.

Radikal daily’s Murat Belge criticizes those who say the AK Party should not take any legal steps to make party closures harder at the moment because such a move would be inappropriate at the current juncture.

“It is obvious that a process has begun, but it is not possible to call it a judicial one. This is perhaps the last name one could give to it,” he says, referring to the lack of any concrete legal ground in the AK Party closure case. He suggests that if one side does not refrain from abusing the judiciary and the law, then the AK Party, which is the victim of this attack, has the right to defend itself.

Vatan daily’s Okay Gönensin thinks the closure case may prompt the AK Party to change the Political Parties Law to harmonize Turkey’s party closure criteria with the standards in democratic countries. “If we can manage to handle the closure case as a lesson for democracy for everybody, we can take these steps,” he says, stressing that there is no point in taking this to a referendum as the AK Party currently plans to do. “This case has once again showed that the issue of freedoms should be handled collectively,” Gönensin adds, stressing the importance of regarding freedoms as a whole.

Bugün daily’s Ahmet Taşgetiren says if the closure case against the AK Party had been filed in a country where judicial decisions were free of any political motivation, then the AK Party would wait for the conclusion of the judicial process before taking action. “This is the stance that should be taken in the wake of a legal case,” he admits.

However, in the AK Party closure case, Taşgetiren points out the wide suspicion about the case’s being a part of a greater project aimed at removing the party from the political stage. He says the political leanings of the judges that will decide on the closure case also raise suspicion over whether their decision will be free of any political influence.

Referring to the allegation that the AK Party has become a “focal point of anti-secular activities,” he voices questions as to whether the prosecutor who prepared the indictment was acting neutrally or with an ideological motive. “When the scope of secularism is so controversial in Turkey, how can the judges have a neutral stance?” he asks. Given the track record of the Turkish judiciary, he thinks it is crucial for the AK Party to take measures that will marginalize the judiciary in the field of politics.

“In my opinion, the AK Party should continue to appeal to the public in the wake of the political deadlock it faces. Certainly, there should be no provocation or insult, but the AK Party should not fail in defending the rights of the 47 percent of the population that voted for it. Yes, this is a defense of democracy. It is [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s responsibility to not let the national will be hijacked,” he declares.

Ergenekon Case

Ergenekon case is considered to be Turkish version of Gladio in Italy. The Ergenekon gang, a neo-nationalist group accused of involvement in plans to stage a violent uprising against the government, was discovered at the end of an investigation that came upon the heels of a police raid in June of last year that uncovered an arms depot in a house in İstanbul’s Ümraniye district. The prosecutor in the Ergenekon case has said the gang worked to create disorder and chaos through divisive and violent acts so the public would be willing to accept a military intervention to restore order.

“Turkish authorities should resolutely pursue investigations into the Ergenekon affair, to fully uncover its networks reaching into the state structures and to bring those involved to justice,” the draft report, prepared by Dutch Christian Democrat MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten, said.

The group is suspected of involvement in the murder of three Christian missionaries in Malatya in 2007, the 2006 murder of a priest in the northern city of Trabzon, the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, a 2006 attack on the Council of State and a grenade attack on daily Cumhuriyet in 2006.

The draft report also strongly called on the government to speed up its reform process and fulfill its promises on sensitive issues such as Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). The nine-page draft viewed by Today’s Zaman is expected to be discussed at the Foreign Affairs Committee in April and to be approved by the parliament in May.

The draft, which is expected to be amended several times before approval by the European Parliament, welcomes a declaration by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that 2008 would be the year of reforms. Another development that the report refers to with satisfaction is the civilian authorities’ success in confronting the military interference in the political process back in April, when the government boldly rejected an intervention by the military in the process of presidential elections.

Welcoming Parliament’s passage of the Law on Foundations granting broader property rights for non-Muslim minorities, the draft calls for vigorous further steps for reforms. Calling the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a terror organization, the draft says the PKK should declare an immediate and unconditional cease-fire. The draft also took note of Erdoğan’s statements on assimilation, which he made in Germany and which were widely criticized in EU capitals. Erdoğan said in Germany last month that the government wanted the Turks to integrate better in the German society, but rejected assimilation, saying it was a “crime against humanity.”

In her draft report Oomen-Ruijten refrained from using the word “genocide” to describe events of World War I, which Armenians claim amounted to a genocide of their ancestors in eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire. She instead called on Turkey and Armenia to work together to start a process of reconciliation. Oomen-Ruijten, in her previous resolution on Turkey last fall, came under enormous pressure from Armenian groups to refer to a genocide, but she refused to do so.

Zaman newspaper