Opinions
Turkey in 2014: Not too bright [Witch-hunt against Gulen Movement expected]
As I have written before, if there are bureaucrats who misuse their authority to serve the interest of the Gülen Movement, or any other entity, the government certainly has the right to fire them and bring them to justice. However, what Dilipak describes is a much larger scale witch-hunt, which can only violate many civil liberties and raise the tension in society to new heights.
Advisor’s claim has potential to accelerate AK Party’s downfall
Amid a deepening high-profile corruption scandal that has seriously damaged the government’s reputation, a claim made by a senior advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has the potential to bring the military back to the political scene, carrying the risk of accelerating his party’s downfall from power.
A destructive option for Turkey takes shape
It is a “parallel state,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claims, and the movement gets help from its die-hard loyal media, as well as some leftist-secular circles and even from abroad. Such diversion on this issue helps him buy time, water down the content of accusations and divert attention.
Why Mr. Gülen was targeted
The main difference between Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen and the politician who became Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is that the former is vehemently opposed to the use and abuse of Islam as a political ideology and party philosophy while the latter sees the religion as an instrument to channel votes and to consolidate his ranks among supporters.
Turkey’s political weather forecast
A statement from the Higher Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) said a decree from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKParti) government was against the Turkish Constitution. The Board was mentioning the government’s Dec. 21 decree, asking prosecutors to inform local administrative authorities about their investigations, which was supposed to be confidential
The mother of all wars
The heart of the matter is whether the [Turkish Government] corruption charges are valid. If they are, then there will be little to say other than calling all corrupt politicians to resign. Few people are interested in this factual matter, however, as the mother of all political wars escalate everyday with accusations, counter-accusations and unabashed partisanship.
Can the EU be blamed for Erdoğan’s authoritarianism?
It may be speculated that the EU’s resistance to Turkey’s European integration has to a certain extent played a role in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s slide into authoritarianism. If the EU had consistently backed its accession process, Ankara may have consolidated democracy and rule of law, so that such a concentration of power could have been avoided.
Irrationality rules
Nobody outside of Turkey understands why a government that claims to be innocent and portrays itself as the victim of dirty conspiracies uses every legal — and according to many illegal — means at its disposal to stop further investigations and punish those who gathered the evidence or wrote the indictments.
The end of ‘unshakable’ AKP myth
For the last couple of days, the codes and rules, which have been turned upside-down by Turkey’s ruling AKP, have become hard to keep up with since the AKP was forced to fight a self-created “monster.” The option for a snap election call seems the wisest option for his party but stakes are high over there too if he fails in his traditional “victimization” rhetoric, which worked well in many previous crisis, to convince his electorate.
Saving the soul of Turkey [amid the graft probe]
In terms of fundamental rights, Erdoğan does not tolerate any dissent or critical media at all. He publicly bashes reporters, labeling them traitors or foreign agents just because these members of the press corps are exercising their right to freedom of expression. Civic groups like Hizmet are unable to avoid his wrath as well and are easily accused of running “parallel structures” or “gangs” within the state apparatus with no shred of evidence to back these claims.
