The 'crimes' of Tayyip Erdogan
‘There is that religious freedom in the US,’ the prime minister says, ‘but not in my country.’ And for similar remarks, he deserved a political ban!
by Mustafa AKYOL
The latest assault on the elected representatives of the Turkish people, as you might have noted, has come in the form of a judiciary coup d'état attempt. Turkey's chief prosecutor filed a case against the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP). He wants to close the party down, and ban 71 of its top members, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from politics.
Some people have defended the prosecutor's indictment by reminding that Turkey has also closed down several pro-Kurdish parties. That is a completely invalid argument. I have always thought that banning those parties was a mistake, too, but theirs was a different matter. They had clear links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is recognized by Turkey, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization. Such a link might at least legally justify the banning of a party. Spain has done the same thing with parties linked with ETA.
Speaking too much!:
As for the AKP, there is, of course, nothing whatsoever about terrorism, violence, or even a hate speech. The party is under threat simply because of its political views. The state establishment holds different views, and it simply wants to eliminate those who disagree.
But what are those views? The chief prosecutor has done a good job on that and collected quite many quotes from AKP leaders, and especially Mr. Erdogan. These quotes, he thinks, are enough to prove that this party is anti-secular and thus deserves eradication.
I have not seen an English translation of the chief prosecutor's indictment yet, so I decided to translate some of the “criminal” remarks of Mr. Erdogan. They include these:
- “A democratic country should grant religious freedom. This includes the right of the citizens to express their beliefs, but of course with respect to the laws. The headscarf ban is not liberal.”
- “Banning [the headscarf] is a method practiced by the French. We Turks rather appreciate the Anglo-Saxon interpretation of secularism. We think it is ridiculous to have such bans in the 21st century.”
- “My daughter had passed the exams to go to Bogaziçi University, but she could not go there. Her points were lowered because she is a graduate of the imam-hatip [religious] high school. We, as a family, have suffered from this situation. Actually this problem needs to be solved through the consensus of all political parties. I do not want to solve it alone, because that creates tension.”
- (In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer:) “My daughters are going to college in the United States [with their headscarves]. There is that freedom there, but not in my country. I only bear this pain right now in order to avoid a social tension in my country. I think we will suffer for sometime… But I believe that in the end justice will prevail.”
- “[While approving Turkey's ban on headscarf] the European Court of Human Rights should have asked the opinion Islamic scholars as expert witnesses on whether this veil is an ideological, sociological or religious thing… They should have asked and then make their own decision. We will respect their decision.”
- “My biggest wish is [to see] a country in which our veiled and unveiled girls go hand in hand to university. We are working toward that goal. Solving this [problem] is my greatest passion.”
- “99 percent of our country is Muslim. Thus this is a Muslim country… But being an Islamic country is different from being an Islamic state.”
I do not know what you think about these quotes from Mr. Erdogan, but all of them sound reasonable to me. You might find them unreasonable, of course, but probably not criminal.
Actually even the chief prosecutor does not argue so. But he has an amazing line of thinking. After listing dozens of such quotes by the prime minister in his indictment, he said:
“For the actions of a political party to require its closure, these actions do not necessarily have to be defined as crimes in the penal code… It is enough that these actions have become public and include a particular topic.”
So there is no criminal action that the prime minister or his party has taken, but they simply spoke too much on a “particular topic” that the chief prosecutor and his comrades did not like!
The antithesis of justice :
That particular topic is the nature of Turkish secularism. Many uninitiated Westerners perceive this as separation of church and state – which is great principle, by the way – but here things are different.
In the eyes of the Turkish establishment, secularism means that citizens can practice religion only in their private lives. Any social movement inspired by religion, or any religious symbol in public, is considered to be a violation. This, of course, requires the suppression of religion by authoritarian measures. That is why Turkish secularism has no parallels in the free world. Even the French secularism, which is said to be a source of inspiration for Turkey, is much more liberal.
And the “crime” of Mr. Erdogan is to try to liberalize this fiercely illiberal system. One of his predecessors, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, paid the price by being executed by the military in 1961. Now, in post-modern times, it is the chief prosecutor who wants to execute him – but this time only politically.
Will that plot against Turkish democracy succeed? We will see.... If justice will really prevail as Mr. Erdogan hopingly said in one of his “criminal” remarks, then the prosecutor must lose. He just has become the very antithesis of justice.
© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr
It appears that the neo-cons are behind this move by Crypto Jews in Turkey to bring down the AKP and Erdogan's government, in prepartion for Turkey to join any eventual war against Iran.
The Zionists need Turkish bases, and military support for a war against Iran.