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Author: Zaman Australia

  • Strip-searched, abused and pushed back, Erdoğan critic talks about her ordeal in Greece

    The story of a woman who sought asylum in Greece together with her family but was returned to Turkey reveals the ordeal of refugees who are being pushed back in increasing numbers.

    Speaking to Dilek Gül of Euronews Turkish, the woman, identified as E.K., said after crossing the border and walking for four hours, her family and the group they were traveling with came across the Greek police and told them they wanted to seek political asylum. Yet, the police confiscated their IDs and mobile phones and handed them over to two armed, masked men. They were then taken to a forest where only the women were strip-searched.

    According to E.K. they were abused during the search. “They touched the vaginal areas with their fingers … all this happened in front of others, including children,” she said. They were then returned to Turkey, where her husband was arrested and she was conditionally released.

    E.K.’s husband was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization for his alleged links to the Gülen movement. He was in prison for a year and was released pending appeal. After his sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals, the family decided to leave the country.

    “He didn’t want to go back to prison,” E.K. said. “Since he was in prison before, he knows how bad the conditions are there.”

    They wanted to travel to another country in Europe through Greece, but they had to cross the border illegally because the government refuses to issue them passports.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

    Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

    E.K. herself is a former public servant fired from her job over alleged Gülen links. Although no explanation was provided, she guesses it was because of an account she had in the now-closed Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time, which was affiliated with followers of the movement.

    In the aftermath of the abortive putsch, more than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces, were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

    Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs; they were also banned from working again in the public sector and getting a passport.

    “What we went through is inhuman,” E.K. said. “We are poor people who risk death to seek asylum and they give us another trauma. As a European country Greece shouldn’t have been this barbaric.”

    In a report published last month Amnesty International harshly criticized the Greek government and the European Union’s border agency Frontex for violent and illegal detention of refugees and pushbacks.

    “It is clear that multiple arms of the Greek authorities are closely coordinating to brutally apprehend and detain people who are seeking safety in Greece, subjecting many to violence, then transferring them to the banks of the Evros River before summarily returning them to Turkey,” Adriana Tidona, migration researcher for Europe at Amnesty International, said. “Our research shows that violent pushbacks have become the de facto Greek border control policy in the Evros region. The level of organization needed to execute these returns, which affected around 1000 people in the incidents we documented, some numerous times and sometimes via unofficial detention sites, shows just how far Greece is going to illegally return people and cover it up.”

    According to the report pushbacks are not only taking place in border areas. People are also being apprehended and detained far into the Greek mainland before being transported to the Evros region to be illegally returned to Turkey.

    “All of the people we spoke to were pushed back from areas where Frontex has significant numbers of staff,” Tidona said. “The agency cannot therefore claim to be ignorant of the abuses that we, and many others, have documented. Frontex has the duty to prevent human rights violations, if they cannot do this effectively, they should withdraw or suspend operations in Greece.”

    Amnesty called on the European Commission to launch infringement proceedings against Greece “for its violation of EU asylum and fundamental rights law.”

  • Abdulhamit Bilici: Erdogan enjoys abusing July 15 coup but prevents true investigation

    It has been five years since an attempted coup in Turkey changed the course of the country’s democracy. On the evening of July 15th, 2016, a faction within the Turkish military attempted a takeover but ultimately failed. This report attempts is to unveil the real facts about the July 15 Coup, which was ‘planned’ and scripted five years ago by the AKP and the Tayyip Erdoğan regime. Mafia Organization Leader Sedat Peker’s statement that some AKP members were distributing weapons before July 15 appeared in the international media. This report continues to shed light on the 15 July Planned Coup. ABC News Australia News Channel conducted an interview with Zaman Newspaper editor Abdülhamit Bilici. Bilici was usurped by the AKP regime and had to leave the country and go to America. Here are Bilici’s answers to the questions put to him by Beverley O’Connor from ABC News Australia.

    Good to talk to you. What struck you when you look back to that moment five years ago as this coup played out?

    It was terrible for me as a Turkish citizen and journalist to see such an especially horrible attempt to destroy democracy. I condemned it, and I still condemn it. But I have been a journalist for over 25 years, and I know in recent Turkish history there have been five successful quote unquote, military interventions in one way or another. However, this was not like those coup attempts that were successful. This was like a caricature, a cartoon of a real coup because the timing was unbelievable. The coordination was non-existent. It failed within a couple of hours. And it was clear that it would fail because coups usually, in Turkey and in the world, generally happen in the early morning. This is a time when people are in their beds, but this coup was in primetime. The media was live and as you know, the first thing that the coup generals do is to silence the media. But this was not the case.  The media was live, but the orchestrators of the coup, were trying to close down the traffic on one side of an important bridge in Istanbul, which has no relevance for a successful coup. So, there are still, many, if not 1000s of question marks about the authenticity of the coup. Many people think that this was an orchestrated or staged coup, which benefitted only Erdogan and his party.

    But of course, Erdogan blamed it on supporters of Gulen’s Hizmet Movement, a movement you’ve been linked to, so what do you say to those accusations?

    Whoever participated in such a coup -in this horrible act, I condemn. But I mean, the conditions were so bad, that we, as the citizens of the country are not able to see the real picture of what happened on July 15. Because on that night, 5000 judges and prosecutors were purged and that had nothing to do with the coup. As a result, 200 critical media outlets were silenced and shut down. More than 200 journalists were imprisoned. So, under those conditions, how you can see what is the real motive and what happened on July 15? Today, after five years, we still do not have a clear picture of what happened. Looking retrospectively, I see Erdogan’s description of the coup as a gift from God. From my perspective looking back I see that it helped only Erdogan. So now the opposition is destroyed, and the biggest opposition party’s chairman is in jail. You know, how this chairman defined the coup attempt? He said, this is the biggest conspiracy of our century. And the main opposition party leader defined the coup as a controlled coup, which Erdogan knew was coming, but did not do anything to stop it from happening.

    And to your point, this really started the collapse of democracy in Turkey, and this is what we are looking at today.

    The destruction of democracy did not start with the coup and of course Turkey was never a perfect democracy. It was struggling to be a better democracy. But my newspaper, for instance, was silenced five months before the coup, and several other newspapers and TV stations were shut down before the coup, even one year before the coup. Erdogan was doing good in terms of democracy until 2011 – 2012. But then, he switched from a democratic path into an autocratic path. The coup attempt, the July 15, was the last nail in the coffin of the Turkish democracy. So that I mean if we miss that point, we will not understand it correctly. And now I see 7000 academics have been purged. As I said, 5000 judges were purged from their positions and there is no independent media or no independent judiciary. There are opposition parties still.  They are asking and they are proposing to investigate what happened on July 15. But those proposals are rejected by the members of the ruling party- Erdogan’s party. This is very strange. Some of those journalists are attempting to investigate what really happened. But some of them were jailed just because of those questions and for questioning the official narrative.

    Your newspaper before it was shut down had been quite supportive of some of the policies of Erdogan. And then you said, the mood shifted. What do you think was driving the fear that you saw in order one? What was the reason that Erdogan felt he needed to pursue this crackdown?

    I think 2013 was a critical year for this change by Erdogan. In the summer of 2013, there was a protest, called ‘Gezi protests’ in the downtown Istanbul., In these protests there were young people protesting against  Erdogan’s proposal to destroy a green park in order to construct a shopping mall in that area.  Turkey was a rising star of democracy at that time in the world. So it was a shock to us who were supporting Erdogan and to all the world to see how Erdogan reacted. Erdogan destroyed those protests and arrested protesters and unfortunately the police killed some of these young people. This was the one, the very important time that Erdogan switched from the path of democracy to an authoritarian path. The second important event was the exposition of the corruption at the end of the that same year. Erdogan’s ministers and his relatives (his family members) were involved in a very dark a bribery scheme, which involved violating international sanctions against Iran and in return receiving bribes from a businessman. So, in that position, Erdogan had two options. Either he could destroy democracy and judiciary and free media to survive, or to go to the court to respond to the allegation, Erdogan picked this first option. So since then, he has moved against all who oppose him.

     I was going to say in terms of the current situation  what hope do you have that any journalist  or writer will be allowed to write their opinions?  Is there any hope for this situation to come to an end somehow while Erdogan controls the country with an iron fist?

    You know, when the fundamentals of democracy are destroyed, it is not easy to get them back or to fix them. The problem is even if most of the Turkish people are against Erdogan and with a fragmented opposition and lack of a free media Erdogan will remain in control. Today 95% of the media is under Erdogan’s control. The judiciary is under his control. Parliament lost its significance after July 15. So, under those conditions, Erdogan’s popularity is not rising, but the mechanisms for change are already destroyed. So, it is very difficult. But of course, there is still some hope. In 2019, there was an election, and Erdogan lost some local municipalities mainly in Istanbul and in Ankara. This is an important sign that Turkish people still aspire for democracy if they can. But as I said the conditions, since 2013, have become worse and worse. And unfortunately, now even the member and the leader of the third biggest party is in jail.  You can imagine the situation and how it is hard to go back to democracy,

    indeed, how much I appreciate you bringing talking to us and just trying to give us some analysis of where Turkey is placed today. Thank you so much. 

  • Documentary tells stories of people fleeing Turkey’s post-coup crackdown

    A documentary telling the stories of some of the victims of Turkey’s post-coup crackdown who were able to leave the country through Greece premiered on YouTube on the anniversary of the abortive putsch of July 15, 2016.

    Titled “I crossed the Maritsa, leaving behind 40 years of memories,” the documentary gives voice to supporters of the faith-based Gülen movement who fled persecution after imprisonment or trial on terrorism-related charges. Its title is taken from a poem by Halil Dinç, a teacher who died shortly after taking refuge in Greece. The Maritsa River constitutes part of the border between Turkey and Greece and is used frequently by refugees.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

    Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He locked up thousands including many prosecutors, judges and police officers involved in the investigation as well as journalists who reported on them.

    Erdoğan intensified the crackdown on the movement following the coup attempt in July 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

    Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive crackdown. One hundred sixty-four media outlets, 1,058 educational institutions and close to 2,000 NGOs were shut down without any due process. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

    According to a statement by Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, a total of 622,646 people have been the subject of investigation and 301,932 have been detained, while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement since the failed coup. The minister said as of February 2021 there are 25,467 people in Turkey’s prisons who were jailed on alleged links to the Gülen movement.

    The Turkish government accepted such daily activities as having an account at or depositing money in a Gülen movement-affiliated bank, working at any institutions linked to the movement or subscribing to certain newspapers and magazines as benchmarks for identifying and arresting tens of thousands alleged members of the movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.

  • Illuminating the events surrounding July 15, 2016 :We will explore some of the questions still waiting to be answered

    A military coup is always planned and certain conditions must be met for a coup to take place. One of them is the agreement in the chain of command amongst the military leadership. Among the individuals and ranks to be considered, the role of the Chief of Staff and the commanding officers are critical. This is because, if these powerful individuals issue a statement in opposition to military activity leading to a coup, this can prevent the event occurring.

    Special Forces Commander Zekai Aksakallı said, “In times of crisis, personnel are ordered to remain with their units. If this order had been given to army personnel, the coup’s true nature would have been exposed’’. This statement by Zekai Aksakallı shows that Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar was not against the coup, but was part of the planned intelligence operation.

    WHY WERE THE COMMANDERS HIDING?

    The actions of the commanding officers during, before and after July 15 are not in line with standard military procedure. Why does a commander not give any orders until the morning after while his subordinates are waiting for orders? Why would a commander remain hidden, or treat an officer close to him as the leader of the coup while he is at the Akıncı base in Ankara?

    WHY WAS THE PUBLIC INVITED TO THE STREETS?

    If there was a military uprising, why would the ruling party call the people to the streets, not the state’s security forces? Among the people who were called to the streets, 99% of those who died were killed not by soldiers but by armed people whose origins were unknown. It is clearly seen in forensic medical reports that bullets that not in the TSK’s inventory were used and civilians standing face to face with military units were shot in the neck.

    Why weren’t the people who were armed and cut off soldiers’ heads on a bridge investigated? These people were recognized as “heroes who prevented the coup”. Why weren’t the weapons of military personnel who were summoned to bridges, placed on the street or in action on July 15 subject to ballistic examinations? What was the reason for the action taken against military personnel who never served on July 15, who were abroad, on leave, retired or had died long ago? Why can’t journalists follow the July 15 trials? This was one of the most important events in Turkish history. Why aren’t the trials broadcasted live? Why are authorities afraid of what may be revealed?

    WHY ARE THOSE WHO WRITE THE TRUTH ARRESTED?

    Journalists who write about the facts revealed in courts and lawyers who describe the events in the courts are arrested and silenced. Why weren’t the Prime Minister, the President, the ministers, the deputies, any of the important figures who could be the target of the coup d’état arrested by the putschists on July 15? Why were commanding officers alleged to have been detained not as prisoners but as directors of the coup?

    HOW CAN TWO DOCUMENTS BE THE SAME?

    How can the Martial Law Directive, which is included in the records of court files, be said to have been prepared by the putschists? A document prepared long ago by the MIT had the same spelling and information errors? During a live broadcast, a Fox TV reporter said the parliament was bombed but planes were not flying there. How was the parliament bombed when there were no planes in the air? WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE BOMBING OF PARLIAMENT? The Gölbaşı Police Special Operations building was bombed quite accurately, but why was there no hit recorded on the whole Parliament or the Presidential Palace? What benefit did the putschists think they would gain with these bombing activities? Why is there no physical damage or effects of the supposed bombings that are said to have taken place in the Parliament and the Palace? So much so that there was not even a fire. Why wasn’t all the national media (except for a show or two) commandeered by the putschists for their own use?

    WHY WERE THESE NAMES EXCLUDED FROM THE COMMISSION?

    Why were names such as the Chief of Staff, commanding officers, MIT Undersecretary, and important people such as Zekai Aksakallı excluded from the Coup Investigation Commission? Why are they not being tried in the courts or accused of carrying out the coup? How could the President, Prime Minister and other government officials, who said that they could not reach the MIT Undersecretary or the Armed Forces Command during the coup attempt, come to the conclusion that the coup was carried out by members of the Hizmet Movement? WHY

    IS THE HEAD OF MIT, WHO DID NOT NOTIFY OF THE COUP, STILL IN OFFICE?

    Why did names such as the MIT Undersecretary and the Chief of General Staff, who did not share any information or warn the government about the coup attempt, continue their duties or were promoted after the coup? Why did the buses carrying the Air Force Academy students returning from Yalova to Istanbul not all follow the same route? They preferred different routes. How was it that there were armed people waiting for them at points and they were involved in a fire fight?

    HOW DID EVENTS THAT NEVER TOOK PLACE GET DOCUMENTED?

    How is it possible that thousands of Judges and Prosecutors in many provinces were grouped together with the putschists in the early hours after the coup attempt? This was before anything was truly understood and before anyone knew who had carried out the coup d’état of July 15? How can events that never happened on July 15 be recorded in the report of Public Prosecutor Serdar Coşkun, which forms the basis for the detention of the abovementioned judges and prosecutors?

  • Boğaziçi demands democratic election for rector after loyalist’s dismissal

    An independent student platform at İstanbul’s Boğaziçi University has voiced their demand for a democratic election to be held at the university to elect a new rector, following the dismissal of Melih Bulu, whose appointment by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in early January sparked more than six months of protests.

    A founding member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s Sarıyer district branch and former deputy chairman of the AKP’s İstanbul provincial chapter who had refused to step down amid the protests, Bulu was dismissed by Erdoğan via a decree published in the Official Gazette on Wednesday.

    Boğaziçi Dayanışması on Thursday said in a series of tweets that they would not accept a new rector to be appointed to replace Bulu, either from within or outside the university, since they oppose the appointment of rectors by Erdoğan and demand an election to choose one themselves.

    In addition to the holding of a democratic election at Boğaziçi to choose a new rector, the student platform also demanded the reopening of the university’s LGBTI+ student club that was shuttered in February.

    “The dismissal of a puppet who was appointed [by decree] at midnight [by another decree] at midnight doesn’t represent an achievement, but only a crisis of management and the lack of ability of the palace [Erdoğan]!” they said, vowing they would continue protests until all their demands are met.

    “Our resistance hadn’t been going on for over six months so that the president could make a decision [for us]. We are the ones who will get our rights and freedom back! … Universities belong to us … not the government. [We call for] elections at all universities for autonomy,” Boğaziçi Direnişi, another student platform, stated.

    Shortly after Bulu’s dismissal, the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) appointed the university’s vice rector, Prof. Dr. Naci İnci, as acting rector.

    YÖK also made a written announcement regarding applications for the position of rector at Boğaziçi, saying candidates who meet the criteria would be able to apply for the position until Aug. 2.

    Students and alumni as well as politicians and activists have since the beginning of January protested the appointment of Bulu as rector, arguing that it is a part of Erdoğan’s broader effort to centralize control over universities and that it undercuts academic freedoms and democracy.

    Since early 2021 hundreds demanding the resignation of Bulu and the appointment of a rector from the university staff after the holding of an election have been detained for participating in the youth-driven protests that have echoes of the Gezi Park protests that erupted in 2013 against plans to demolish a park in İstanbul’s Taksim neighborhood before spreading nationally and presenting a direct challenge to Erdoğan’s rule.

    Critics slammed the appointment of Bulu, saying he was not qualified for the job and that a state-appointed rector harmed the independence of the university.

  • Erdogan’s hostility towards Gülen goes back to December 17/25, 2013

    During an interview on ABC’s Lateline, Tony Jones asked Greg Barton some key questions about the post-coup purge in Turkey.

    TONY JONES: Greg Barton is a counterterrorism expert at Deakin University. He was also once an advisor to the former Indonesian President Wahid, sometimes known as “the laughing Sufi”. Professor Barton has also studied the religious underpinnings of the Gulenist movement.
    Thanks for being here.

    GREG BARTON: Thanks, Tony. Good to be with you.

    T.J: Erdogan’s purge, as we’ve heard, is incredibly extensive of soldiers, police, judges, teachers, civil servants, sacked, suspended or detained. Is he trying to tear out the Gulenist Movement from the society by its roots?

    G.B: That’s what he says, Tony, but actually what he’s doing goes way beyond anything that makes sense on those grounds. He’s using that as a pretext to cover what he does, but I think he surely knows that his problem is not with the Gulen movement, it’s anyone who dares speak up and dissent, whether they’re Kemalist or they do have links to the Gulen movement. So, this is really a smokescreen for a much bigger operation. He’s made no secret of his desire for executive presidential power. He didn’t have that yesterday. He has it today with emergency rule, and when that expires, if it does, in three months’ time, it’ll probably be permanent as a result of constitutional change.

    T. J: Yeah. I mean, we know, however, the Gulenist movement is rooted in the schools, it’s global, as we’ve seen with the schools set up in Australia. Erdogan has now turned the education system on its head. He’s closed down 600 schools, tens of thousands of teachers, Education minister, bureaucrats, university deans, all sacked. Is it possible that he’s just getting rid of every element of the Gulenist movement in the education system along with everything else?

    G. B: Well he certainly seems to be trying to do that. In fact, he’s been working on that for three years now. Relations with the Gulen movement went sour three years ago, first with the Gezi Park protest, a very harsh reaction, and then December, 2013 with really serious corruption allegations aired through Gulen-linked media outlets. It’s kind of remarkable he’s got anyone left to purge, but he’s certainly made them his public enemy, but there must be many, many more who have no links. I mean, one-third of the general staff of the senior military officers are now arrested or detained, and most of them, given their seniority, would have had no connection with any religious movement because the Turkish military never allowed religious connections. So, common sense suggests there’s something much more than this going on.

    T. J: Is there any doubt though how pervasive the movement was for example in the police force? Promotion in the police force was part of being a member of this movement, according to many. I mean, there’s no doubt, is there, that the movement was infiltrating, effectively, some parts of the society?

    G. B: Well Tony, it was a very powerful still is a very powerful civil society movement in Turkey and around the world. One of the world’s most significant moderate Islamic movements and it had enormous cultural sway in Turkey. It’s always hard with Turkey to figure out fact from fiction when it comes to conspiracy theory, but they were the most powerful movement outside of Government control. But cultural civil society’s fear, whether that amounts to infiltration or whether it just is a natural consequence of having an effective education program, you know, is a matter of debate. But they never were a political movement and never aspired to political power, so they’re being painted as being something beyond what they ever were.

    T. J: Do they pose a philosophical and religious threat to Erdogan’s version of Islam? Is that, part of the problem here and are they in fact Sufis in their nature?

    G. B: Look, they certainly are Sufi and the irony is that, for a decade, as Erdogan was a successful democratic prime minister and the economy grew and democracy was consolidated, there was a confluence between the same demographic base that voted for AKP, Erdogan’s party, and the democratic base that basically supported the Gulen movement – small-town conservative, socially conservative, but Sufistic moderate Turkish Muslims. That split that emerged in 2013 was entirely for personal reasons and you get the sense that Erdogan is so afraid not just of corruption allegations, but of the sense that his religious legitimacy is being challenged by the most revered religious leader in Turkey that he finds it necessary to demonize that religious leader so that he can maintain his claim to be acting not just for the people of Turkey, but for true religion. He’s very much a religious figure, Erdogan, and he doesn’t want any challenge to his religious authority, although it’s put in political terms.

    T. J: So, in what way are Sufis actually different in their philosophy, if you like, their religious philosophy to the kind of Islam which Erdogan would espouse and too Islamism or Islamists generally?

    G. B: Well Islamism is very much a here-and-now focus on political power. I mean, commonly the formulation is application of Sharia, if not an Islamic state, so top-down enforcement of religious morality and observance. Erdogan is representing people and has the popular support of people who are basically Sufistically-inclined, but his own inclinations has borrowed a lot from the surrounding Islamism of countries like Egypt, where in many respects he’s always had a sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood. That doesn’t have a presence in Turkey, but his inclinations ran that way ever since he was Mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s and then became this transformational prime minister of a new party. So, there’s an odd tension there. I mean, in theory, the people supporting him actually have the same religious outlook as people in the Gulen network, but this is about personal authority.

    T. J: It is interesting to note, though, when it comes to the Gulenist movement, the Catholic Church, even some leading Zionists in the United States, have described the principles and teachings of Gulen as the antidote to fundamentalism. Is that an accurate assessment?

    G. B: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Indonesia earlier, Tony. I mean, Gus Dur Abdurrahman Wahid was very different in his personal style than Fethullah Gulen, but I’ve met Gulen a couple of times and he strikes me as a similar sort of moderate, modern Sufistic Muslim. He’s more socially conservative than Abdurrahman Wahid was, but in many ways, very similar ideas and I’ve looked at the ideas of both men very closely. So, yeah, I think that idea that people often say Islam needs reformation. That’s too simplistic, but all religions need a way of coming to terms with the modern world and with plural society, and in Indonesia and in Turkey, we’ve seen these leaders offer a way forward and it’s basically been a good news story, so it’s a pity it’s mired in political controversy at the moment. The TRuth

  • How a failed coup destroys democracy?!

    By ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ

    There are many unanswered questions about the July 15 coup attempt, which lead many independent obsorvers to conclude it was not a real coup but a staged one like Hitler’s Reichstag fire that gave him the excuse to wipe out opposition and create one man rule.

    Questions like how Chief of Intelligence and Chief of Staff preserved their positions, even promoted if they were unable to inform Erdogan, who claimed to have learned about the coup attempt from his sister’s husband?

    Or Erdogan replied with 4 different versions about the first time he learned the coup was on that evening? Or how the general who was praised for his role in preventing the coup attempt was later portrayed as the leader of the coup?

    Or what was the logic behind starting a coup at prime time on a summer evening when people are chilling all around instead of an early morning when people were deep in their sleep ( universal and Turkish coup time).

    Or what was the rationale behind closing one way traffic at one of Istanbul, bridges while leaving all media intact?

    Or what was the sense of bombing the parliament building if coup plotters reported the aim was to restore democracy and especially doing that after it bacame clear that attempt failed? Or why and how can a political leader describe a coup attempt targeting himself as a gift from God?

    Or why Erdogan’s Intelligence Chief and Chief of Staff rejected to respond to questions from members of parliamentary commitee investigating the attempt. Or why Erdogan abruptly stop this commission from completing its investigation?

    Or why did the incomplete report of that commission disappeared?

    Or why whoever questioned the official version of the coup attempt were silenced like jailing opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş who described July 15 as the conspiracy of century by Erdogan and critical journalist Ahmet Şık who found himself in jail after questioning the official July 15 narrative?

    Though each of these is a very critical question mark, they are still less mind boggling compared to the question at the headline of this piece: How could a failed coup destroy a democracy?

    If July 15 was a real coup attempt and failed, why did Turkey lose its democracy instead of celebrating and strenghtening it?

    Turkey was never a full fledged democracy and it has always been hard for anyone not considered loyal to the regime under the ultra secularist and nationalist ideology of previous establishments, but destruction of democratic rights were not crashed even after previous ‘successful’ coup attempts to the extent of the July 15 failed coup.

    I was an editor at Aksiyon weekly during the February 28 post-modern coup, which forced the elected government to resign as a result of immense pressure and threats from the Turkish military.

    Generals who were behind that attempt had categorized our media group in the enemy camp, but their suppression had been limited to condemnations, some minor court cases and revoking our accreditations to cover any military event including press briefings of Chief of Staff and military maneuvers.

    In total contrast to the July 15 failed coup, which shutdown my newspaper, news agency, our news magazine, tv and radio stations altogether. Just 8 days after the failed coup, the Erdogan government, not generals, raided the homes of reporters, editors, designers, columnists including mine as the last editor-in-chief of the banned Zaman daily and arrested them with the claim that they supported the coup attempt by their publications, which were taken over by the same government 5 months before July 15.

    I left Turkey after the Erdogan goverment occupied and silenced my newspaper, so their attempt to arrest me fortunately failed, but most of my colleagues who were arrested in that raid have been in prison for the last 5 years.

    Even Erdogan’s kangaroo courts were not able to establish any evidence linking these journalists to the failed coup but that did not prevent giving long prison sentences, even life time punishments, for some articles or tweets of journalists.

    The media group that I was part of had two big sins. First, it was accused for being affliated to the Hizmet or Gülen Movement, which the Erdogan regime blamed for the failed coup.

    Its second sin was to be an outspoken critical voice exposing the corruption of government and opposing its Islamofascist political ideology. In contrast to widespread perception, suppression of the media under the Erdogan regime did not start after or in reaction to July 15 and it was not limited to Hizmet affliated press.

    On July 21, six days after the failed coup, instead of celebrating the relief, Erdogan’s ruling AKP approved a bill declaring a state of emergency allowing the government to rule by decree. On the same day, Erdogan suspended the European Convention on Human Rights. On July 27, the government published a decree to shut down over 200 critical media outlets, which had nothing to do with the coup or the Gülen group.

    As a result of these policies, Turkey has become the worst jailer of journalists in the world, even worse than China and Iran. The Freedom House put Turkey into the category of ‘not free’ countries. According to the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom index last report, Turkey ranks 154 in 180 countries after Venezuela, Honduras and Bangladesh.

    Silencing critical media was a vital component but was not the limit. With the excuse of July 15, Erdogan purged the judiciary by firing or jailing more than 5.000 judges and prosecutors including two members of the Supreme Court and several judges of the highest level courts. The new regime also used July 15 to change Turkey’s political system from parliamentary to presidential, which eroded the controlling power of the legislative over the executive branch.

    As a result, Erdogan established his one man rule by eliminating the most crucial three check and balance mechanisms of a normal democracy: parliament, media and judiciary. Currently, Turkey has a political environment where 95% of media, judiciary, parliament and executive is controlled by one man. This may be the answer to the questions why and how a failed coup destroys a democracy and why a political leader names a coup targeting himself as a gift from God. The TRuth

  • Ten Fundamental changes Erdogan managed to do thanks to Julay 15

    Ten Fundamental changes Erdogan managed to do thanks to Julay 15

    Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan called the coup attempt on the night of July 15 in his first statement as “a gift
    from God.” The Vice-chairman of his AK Party (AKP) said later that they were able to make regulations under the favor of July 15. Here is the list that Erdogan’s AKP couldn’t have done
    if it weren’t for July 15.

  • My reflections on Post-Kemalist Turkey

    Being of Indian Muslim origin, I am very much familiar with Turkish heritage, culture and
    language. Many modern Turks are not aware of the fact that the Indian Muslim rule that spanned for almost
    1,000 years, was largely led by Turkish rulers. This rule ended with almost 350 years of Mughal rulers who were also of Turkish descent.
    My mother tongue, Urdu, is froma Turkish word meaning army. Urdudeveloped with the confluence of
    Muslim Arabs, Turks, Persians and native Indians, and is a mixed language consisting of almost a quarter each of
    Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Sanskrit.
    During the Muslim rule, the main court and administrative language in India was Persian. The Ulama scholars
    used Arabic, but the rulers spoke, read, and wrote in Turkish within their royal surroundings.
    Indian Muslims, although notpart of the Ottoman Empire, respected Ottoman rule and the seat of the
    Khalifah, and supported the Ottomans during WWI against the British. After the formal abolition of the Caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the early  1920’s, Indian Muslims founded the Khilafah movement. This was to restore the Caliphate and was also supported by Mahatma Gandhi.

    Although not happy with the radical Westernization of modern Turkey, Indian Muslims still admired Turkish people and their culture. Turkey was the only Muslim country that was never colonized and maintained its pride and self-respect. This contrasted with other national states within the Arab world.
    I arrived in Australia almost half a century ago, towards the end of 1971. As a young man, along with my father,
    I had to engage with the two main Muslim communities in Sydney at the time. These two communities were the
    Lebanese and Turkish ethnic groups. I dealt with these two groups to organize Muslims, especially in and around
    Sydney.
    I found the young Turks to be very nationalistic, to some extent anti-Arab and largely conservative. Within this
    group, was a small cohort of elites who were highly Westernized. During the seventies, we had a few sessions with Milli Gorus members. We somehow identified with them as they were ideologically inspired by Said Nursi.
    We supported the Turkish community in the establishment of Erskineville Mosque, where the first formal five
    daily prayers and Jumah prayers were established.

    Later, we also helped the Turkish community with the establishment of our local Bonnyrigg Mosque, and we used this mosque for our own Islamic activities.
    It was only after 2000 that my imagination caught up with the Turkish community again. I saw a new breed of
    young Turks, either born or raised here.
    They were at the forefront of establishing face to face and eye to eye contact
    with the mainstream community and engaged the diverse Australian community in their programs and innovative institutions.
    This was a new trend as opposed to other sections of the Muslim community that were largely insular – engaged
    within their own ethnic community and their suburban mosques.
    I was curious as to where this new energy among the young Turks in Australia came from. I later found out
    that they were inspired by Fethullah Gülen’s global educational movement. They used his extraordinarily success

    ful methodology of engagement with mainstream civil society irrespective of religious, ethnic, and ideological
    affiliations. I attended a highly productive study tour of Turkey together with my wife,daughter, and niece, which was organized by this group of Turks. We visited several cities including Gallipoli, where we attended the Anzac Day dawn service in April 2012 and engaged with diverse groups of Turkish civic society
    movement members. This included academics, religious scholars, health professionals, educationists, and journalists, and this completely transformed my view of Turkey.
    I found that post- Kemalist Turkey had shed its indifference with Islam and  there had been a rapid Islamization of the Turkish society during the last two decades. I had the impression that the Kemalist forces were on the run and Turkey was again ready to take on the leadership of the Muslim world. This entailed a return to Islamic roots and establishing a modern, Islamic civil society.
    However, my dreams and hopes were soon dashed when I realized that the Islamophilic forces that were
    transforming Turkey from Erbakan to Erdogan had major issues. The Islamic grassroot movements inspired by Said Nursi and with Milli Gorus and the Gülen movement were having splits
    from within.

    Then came the July 15, 2016 coup attempt against the Turkish government in general and against President
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This was carried out by a faction of the Turkish Armed Forces. These forces had a track record of conducting coups from time to time against elected governments in Turkey.
    The coup attempt failed miserably with minimum loss of life and damage to Turkish institutions. However,
    it brought disastrous impacts on the Turkish society afterwards, leading to gross human rights violations on a
    mega scale.
    The government blamed the Gülen movement, which was earlier designated as a terrorist organization by the
    Republic of Turkey. Communist style purges, unexpected in a democratic Muslim country,
    resulted in immediate mass arrests following the coup. This accompanied  nearly 100,000 arrested, including 4,463 judges and over 300 journalists. So far more than 500,000 people have been investigated and over
    150,000 dismissed from their jobs based on reports of their connections to Gülen. Over 3,000 educational institutions (primary, secondary and tertiary institutions) that had any association with the Gülen movement, were shut down while over 6,000 academics lost
    their jobs.
    All educational, health, aid, media organizations and institutions were either closed or taken over by the
    government. This was especially true of any group with formal or informal association with the Gülen movement.
    This also included those in many other countries under pressure by the Turkish government.

    Just recently, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) abducted a Turkish-Kyrgyz educator Orhan
    İnandı, who went missing in Bishkek on the night of May 31, due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement.
    Human Rights Watch (HRW) had previously called on Kyrgyz authorities to investigate the disappearance of
    İnandı, who is a dual Turkish-Kyrgyz citizen. According to HRW, allowing İnandı’s rendition to Turkey would violate Kyrgyzstan’s obligations under  the “Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
    Treatment or Punishment”.

    While on a visit to various cities in USA in 2018 and in Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa in 2019, I had firsthand experience of high numbers of victims of oppression by the Erdogan government. This group was made up
    of men and women, extraordinarily successful businessmen, academics, educationists, and journalists. All had
    been the victim of these purges and fled Turkey to avoid persecution and are now living as refugees and asylum
    seekers outside their home country.
    As a non-Turk, it makes me feel incredibly sad, where just a decade ago I had a vision of Turkey providing a viable leadership for uniting the fractured Muslim world. Now these hopes have not materialized because of internal division, corruption, and the gross violation of human rights.TRuth

  • Biden taps Jeff Flake, Trump critic in party, as Turkey envoy

    Jeff Flake, a former senator and one of the most outspoken Republican foes of Donald Trump, was nominated Tuesday by President Joe Biden as ambassador to Turkey, tasked with managing one of the most complicated US alliances, Agence France-Presse reported.

    Flake, who unlike many Republicans has never retracted his criticism of Trump and went so far as to campaign for Biden in last year’s election, said he was “humbled and honored” to be chosen as ambassador.

    “This is a pivotal post at an important time for both of our countries,” Flake wrote in a blog post as his nomination was announced in a routine White House statement.

    “With this nomination, the Biden administration reaffirms the best tradition of American foreign policy and diplomacy: the credo that partisan politics should stop at the water’s edge.”

    Turkey, which has experienced major tensions with Washington in recent years but is also a vital partner in key areas such as Afghanistan, was one of the few prominent posts where Biden had left in place a Trump appointee — David Satterfield, a career diplomat with vast experience in the Middle East.

    Flake’s confirmation in the Senate appears virtually assured as Democrats are in control and he remains friendly with many Republican colleagues. Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah said that Biden showed “wisdom” in choosing him.

    Vociferous Trump critic

    Flake, 58, has long been expected to be tapped for a diplomatic post but speculation had focused on an ambassadorship in Africa. Flake served as a Mormon missionary in South Africa and Zimbabwe and was active on African issues as a senator.

    Biden earlier nominated another Republican critic of Trump from Arizona — Cindy McCain, widow of veteran senator John McCain — to be the US ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

    With a boyish smile and an upright moral code commonly associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Flake clashed with Trump from the beginning of the brash tycoon’s political ascent -– even though Flake largely supported Trump’s legislative agenda.

    In a speech before Harvard Law School in 2018, Flake said that “our presidency has been debased by a figure who has a seemingly bottomless appetite for destruction and division and only a passing familiarity with how the Constitution works.”

    By then, Flake had already decided not to seek a second term in the Senate as an infuriated Trump purged the party.

    Near the end of his term, Flake made headlines by appearing visibly distraught after two women approached him in an elevator to say how they survived rape and urge him to block Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — leading Flake to hold up the nomination temporarily until the FBI probed allegations against Kavanaugh. 

    Flake will have a delicate task in handling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan –- who developed such a close relationship with Trump that he reportedly would call the US leader directly and without aides when he was golfing.

    Biden as a candidate branded Erdoğan, who has roots in political Islam and has launched a sweeping crackdown after a failed coup attempt in 2016, an “autocrat” and vowed to support the opposition.

    In April, Biden became the first US president to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide, a categorization from which US leaders had shied away for decades under pressure from Turkey.

    Relations have also been strained for years by Turkey’s purchase of an advanced air defense system from Russia, which defied US warnings that it was jeopardizing its role in the NATO alliance.

    But Biden and Erdoğan appeared to find ways of cooperation when they met in June in Brussels on the sidelines of a NATO summit.

    Erdoğan offered Turkish help in securing Kabul’s international airport, seen as crucial for the country’s long-term stability after Biden ordered a pullout of remaining US troops and as Taliban insurgents make rapid gains.