Turkey: playing the devil’s game
Last Friday, an Istanbul court ordered eight of the newsmen to be released. Whether the court acted independently or was politically influenced is unclear. The action is nonetheless commendable, but many others are still languishing in detention.Worse still, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has added his critic in recent time, foremost cleric Futhullah Gulen, to the […]
Last Friday, an Istanbul court ordered eight of the newsmen to be released. Whether the court acted independently or was politically influenced is unclear. The action is nonetheless commendable, but many others are still languishing in detention.
Worse still, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has added his critic in recent time, foremost cleric Futhullah Gulen, to the list of prospective detainees, requesting for his extradition from the United States, claiming he has a terrorist link.
Meanwhile, one of Turkey’s most influential columnists and critic of the government of the day, Emre Uslu, has not only debunked the allegation, but has alleged that it is the government that is in fact supporting terrorism. According to him, the government had arrested journalists who where on intensive campaigns against terrorism and police officers who had arrested terrorism suspects.
He writes, “You decide, which one is a crime? Plotting against peaceful networks in order to criminalize them and turn the peaceful Nurcu networks into recruitment centres for al-Qaeda or requesting that government authorities not engage in these activities? This is a fight by peaceful people who do not want to see their government engaged in dirty business — supporting al-Qaeda and ISIL — or their country turned into a crime-stained land where all criminal activities are allowed, as well as by those who don’t want Turkey to turn into yet another Lebanon or Iran that uses terrorist proxies to claim political victories in the Middle East.”
The question, really, is why would the government accuse Gulen and a section of the media critical of it of running an armed terrorist group? Where are the arms? Why would a government arrest journalists without having evidence to back up its action? Why would it seek to arrest a high-profile cleric like Gulen without first procuring the basis for doing so? The big question, again, is where are the arms?
To achieve its evil machinations, the government has swiftly enacted laws to arrest and detain people without evidence; suspicion was just enough. I agree entirely with Gultekin AVCI who said: “Gone was a democratic constitutional regime despite its many defects and deficiencies. All the laws the government passed conflict with the Constitution and the ECHR. When a government’s actions and almost all the laws passed by it conflict with the Constitution, that means the existing regime was overturned and a new regime is being established. Packages giving administrative chiefs judicial powers, allowing police forces to detain people without approval from a prosecutor, emphasizing reasonable suspicion, legalize the codes of ‘single-party Turkey’ established by the AKP. Hasn’t the Interior Minister Efkan Ala himself said “We will change the constitutional order”?”
He added: But the opposition press reveals how every step the government is taking murders democracy and law. Currently the greatest obstacle on their way is the press. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of totalitarian rule is the consolidation of the media in one hand.
“Why do they want to take 150 journalists into custody? There are no murder, guns, munitions, bombs, terrorist activities, nothing at all. There is no coercion or violence that justify mentioning a coup. If the real reason is the corruption probe, then we must remind that such probes and detentions are an everyday occurrence in Euro.”
It is shameful that the Turkish government is trying to turn its democracy to militocracy. It is a shame that the president will be making a mockery of a civilian democracy. This is a process that leads nowhere but anarchy.
Oboh wrote from Abuja