Democracy and Education (And An Evermore Divided Turkey)

PHOTO from Vatan

The parliament took up the proposed education law (see past post for background) yesterday just hours after 20,000 demonstrators gathered in Ankara's Tandogan Square to protest what opposition groups view as a unilateral attempt by the ruling AKP to overhaul the education system.

The law the AKP is trying to pass is publicly referred to as "4+4+4" because it seeks to make 12-year education mandatory for all children. Yet that is not the full story. Under the current system, public education is mandatory for the first eight years, after which students may opt to attend imam-hatip, or religious high schools that teach a mixture of standard education and theology, and which are subject to different standards -- and, naturally -- a different ideological/pedagogical atmosphere. The proposed law, which has been amended since my last post, also includes provisions that would pave the way for children to opt to attend imam-hatip  as early as 10 years of age, as well as enter special vocational schools. The original law had included a measure that would allow children to opt into "open education," or home schooling, as early as 10 years of age. That provision has since been amended under pressure from women's another groups that introducing open education at such an early age would lead to an increase in child labor and young girls being kept from school to work at home -- a problem in conservative communities that activist groups have long sought to remedy.

The proposed system seeks to effectively divide education into three tiers -- first, middle, and high school. The government also plans to introduce a year before primary education akin to what in the United States is known as "pre-school," and which AKP politicians have haled as a major selling point of the new law. Under the proposal, children would also be able to join private religious education courses, often held during the summer, after their fourth year in school.

For AKP policymakers, the new system is to be celebrated not only as a means to further the quality of public education but also "democracy" -- a word much heralded by AKP politicians, but which for all intents and purposes, seems simply to mean rule by the majority, and a majority as the ruling party interprets it (for more on this, see this past post he AKP's sparring with TUSIAD, the leading business association in Turkey which has puts itself squarely in opposition to the new arrangements).

Much at the heart of the AKP's framing the issue is the fact that the current system is largely the product of the 1997 "postmodern coup" that toppled the country's former Islamist-led coalition, in which the AKP has its roots. Under military tutelage in the years after the coup, the government sought to guard secularism against what the generals saw as the rising tide of political Islam and the current education system was a major concern, in particular the increasing popularity of imam-hatip. The system prior to the coup allowed parents to place their children in imam-hatip at the age of 10, a policy to which the AKP is returning. It also forbade children to take private religious courses (for example, during summer vacation) before completing five years in school.

Though the reform process at the time was far from democratic and involved a major abuse of power by the military, as well as persecution of numerous educators and students haling from conservative Muslim backgrounds, the new policy did yield some positive results, including an increase in the enrollment rate of girls in the first eight years of public education (from 34% to 65%). While the coup-driven education reform of the late 1990s should in no way be celebrated, the AKP should at the least explain how its new policy will not seek to imperil the success of the past decade in this regard. Yet rather than explaining how the new system (or devising one alternative to that proposed) might build on increased enrollment rates while adopting a more sensitive approach to religion, the party has instead simply decried opponents of the law to be against "democracy."

Polarization over the new law reached a new high two weeks ago when the parliamentary commission responsible for education policy ramrodded the proposal through the commission amidst fistfights between the ruling party and the opposition. Knowing that debate could delay the law's passage through the commission, the AKP blockaded opposition party members' attendance in attempt to forestall efforts to frustrate passage to the parliament's general assembly.

Soon after the brawl, the opposition CHP petitioned to annul the commission's vote, arguing that procedural rules had been violated. Yet parliament speaker Cemil Cicek seems to have no intention of returning the law to commission, and the party's plans at this point are to pass the law in the general assembly by the end of the week.

The protests yesterday reveal just how divided Turkey is becoming. Speaking at Tandogan, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said the law is not "4+4+4," but "8/2." Kilicdaroglu was referring to the two different standards of education children would be receiving after the first eight years (and, in reality, after the age of 10 given the planned introduction of vocational schools and imam-hatip at so young an age). Yet there is another element to the leader's words worth exploring.

Though some of the AKP's policies have aimed to strip national education of some of the more distressing nationalist/ideological aspects of public education (for example, military-designed national security education courses and celebrations of national youth day, which liberals have long considered quasi-fascist), the fact that the government's most recent effort seems to setup a system parallel to that of national education (that is, imam-hatip and vocational education), there is real concern that the secular/conservative divide could grow deeper.Further, there is the very real possibility that a large number of Turks (future voting citizens) as early as age 10 could receive an education that is sub-par when compared to their counterparts that finish 12 years of public eduction. While these students might be more likely to constitute the "pious generation" Erdogan envisioned a few weeks before the education debate started in full, it is highly unlikely that they would demonstrate the same level of political efficacy and sophistication as their more educated counterparts.

Among the groups protesting the new legislation at Tandogan is Egitem-Sen, the left-leaning teachers' union, as well as the Rightful Women's Platform and the Federation of Turkish Women's Associations. The Confederation of Public Sector Workers (KESK), of which Egitem-Sen is a part, is also present. Egitem-Sen has called for two days of teachers' strikes to demonstrate against the proposed law, and is the chief organizer of the demonstrations alongside the CHP.

Ankara's governor, who is a member of the AKP, has questioned the legality of the assembly, and though he has yet to break up the gathering, he has threatened to do so. The municipality has removed banners and placards put up in the environs -- a move CHP parliamentarian and women's rights defender Binnaz Toprak described as a violation of freedom of expression. And so it seems there is potential for the fighting in parliament to soon bleed onto the streets -- a country divided indeed, and with neither liberal nor consensual democracy anywhere in sight at the moment. For more coverage in English of yesterday's protests, click here.

The Powers That Be

PHOTO from Radikal
 
Thousands of protestors organized this Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of the detention of journalists Nedim Sener and Ahmet Şık. Both men have been in prison since March of last year on what appear to be trumped up terrorism charges (see past post), and are by no means alone. They are joined by more than 100 other journalists who are imprisoned on a variety of charges ranging from membership in a terrorist organization to spreading propaganda on behalf one. The overwhelming majority of these cases are against Kurdish nationalist journalists or journalists whom prosecutors have attempted to link to Ergenekon, the shadowy deep-state network thought to be continually plotting to overthrow the government.

Rather than repeat what I have written in past posts on the issue (click here), I would simply like to draw attention to a recent statement released by Reporters Without Borders calling for Turkey to live true to its internationally articulated position that freedom of expression is paramount in a democratic society. These remarks came in response to the recent effort in France to make it illegal to deny the 1915 crimes committed against Armenians as genocide.

In response to both the French National Assembly and Senate's passing of the law, Turkish diplomats joined press freedom advocates and liberals throughout Europe and the world to denounce the law as an unjust and dangerous restriction on the freedom of expression. For the most part taking the moral high ground, French liberals and Turkish diplomats won a major victory last week when the French Constitutional Council ruled that the law violated French constitutional provisions protecting freedom of expression. From RSF:

“We are pleased that freedom of expression has not been sacrificed to a cause, no matter how just the cause may be,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The dangerous breach opened by this law has been closed for the time being but it has already damaged the credibility of the democratic values defended by France and those who defend human rights and the Armenian cause in Turkey.

“We urge France’s politicians to renounce any intention of drafting an amended version of this law. Any thought of using legislation to establish an official history of past events should be ruled out for good after this precedent.

“The Turkish authorities must now face their responsibilities. In the name of free speech, they have for weeks been condemning the French parliament’s meddling in history. Now they must prove that their comments were not just tailored to the circumstances by allowing Turkish citizens to mention the Armenian genocide without fear of being prosecuted.

“Consistency requires that, at the very least, they immediately decriminalize two offences, insulting the Turkish nation (article 301 of the criminal code) and insulting the memory of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Law 5816 of 25 July1951).

“This decision does not exempt Turkey from finally confronting its own history; quite the contrary. Now that Ankara no longer has the excuse of ‘foreign meddling,’ it must remove the straightjacket of official history from the Turkish republic, open a debate about the fate of Turkey’s minorities and end the growing criminalization of journalistic activities.”

Yet the aforementioned restrictions remain, in addition to a host of other offenses that--vaguely interpreted--can be wielded against journalists, including, inter alia, accusing journalists of influencing judicial processes, discouraging citizens from military service, and inciting hated among the citizenry.

While these laws still exist on the books, most concerning, of course, is the use of anti-terrorism laws against journalists, a practice that has picked up under the helm of Ergenekon and KCK prosecutors and within the past three years. Using anti-terrorism laws against journalists is common practice in authoritarian countries ranging from Ethiopia to Venezuela, but it is Turkey who now rivals Iran and China in having the highest number of jailed journalists in any country in the world.

For the past report by the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commission Thomas Hammarberg (April 2011), click here. Since the reporting dates, both the KCK and Ergenekon investigations have continued, raising the number of jailed journalists even higher. In December, at least 29 journalists were detained in a wave of operations against the KCK. Prosecutors accused the journalists of relaying PKK messages to Kurdish nationalist protestors. Numerous other arrests, sometimes on a mass scale, took place throughout 2011.

For a detailed accounting, see Bianet's recently released 2011 Media Monitoring Report, released just last week. I am adding a link to it in the "Key Documents" column on the right-hand sidebar. Bianet reports there are over 104 journalists in prison, up from 30 at the end of 2010.

According to AKP officials, this number is inflated since these people merely happen to work as journalists. They are not in prison for their writing or for being journalists, but because they are members of terrorist organizations who happen to be journalists. Attempts to portray the issue in terms of press freedom are therefore insincere, and according to some, part of an international smear campaign devised by -- guess who? -- terrorist aligned with the ultra-nationalist deep state.


[For those based in Washington, the Center for International Media Assistance, an initiative of the National Endowment for Democracy, will be holding an event on press freedom in Turkey on Tuesday, March 13, at 2 p.m. The event is entitled, "The Big Chill: Press Freedom in Turkey," and you can RSVP here.]

Calling Places

PHOTO from Milliyet

One of my favorite political/rhetorical theorists, Kenneth Burke, reckons rhetoric -- and, more specifically, the politics it facilitates -- as akin to theater. According to Burke, life and politics are theater, and we all, as political actors, are on a stage. Though accusing someone of making political theater is pejorative, for Burke, we all make theater. Think Arendt and her Greek-influenced notion of politics as action -- as individuals appearing to each other in public fora whereby they put forward their thought and ideas, and wherein those thoughts and ideas, though sometimes agonistically incommensurable, are negotiated in communication with others.

For Burke and Arendt, while we may all be actors on a stage or in a public forum, no one has the right to call places. In a liberal democracy, politicians, civil society activists, and citizens all have a right to express themselves in the public sphere -- to partake in politics on any range of issues without being bounded. Tracing the development of civil society's relation to the state, this sort of boundlessness is key to civil society's ability to challenge the state -- to have and take advantage of the space necessary to enact truly democratic politics capable of holding the state accountable to those it governs.

Yet, for many politicians in the AKP, this idea is strange -- and, for too many, anathema. See, for instance, the recent comments of AKP parliamentarian Nurettin Canikli in response to the Turkish Businessmen and Industrialists' Association (TUSIAD)'s criticisms of the government's plans for 4+4+4 education reform. TUSIAD is one of the most important NGOs for Turkey, and has proven a tremendous force for the country's European Union accession process and the democratic reform/EU harmonization packages that have so changed Turkey (and, which, contrary to so much of the coverage one sees in Western media, commenced in 1999, more than two years before the ruling AKP came to power).

According to Canikli, TUSIAD, as a business association, has the right only to speak on matters of business and economic policy -- not education. For Canikli, it is no matter that the quality of education is indubitably connected to both, as the boundaries he would place on the organization are quite strict. But that said, why might TUSIAD not also be able to speak on other important political issues, including human rights, the Kurdish conflict, freedom of the press, and a host of other issues on which it has in the past, should, and hopefully will continue to voice its opinion? For Canikli, if this happens, the association "should not only throw punches, but be ready to get punched."

Canikli, in stronger terms, is echoing remarks Prime Minister Erdogan delivered last Tuesday at his party's parliamentary group meeting. Though Erdogan laid off the issue during yesterday's party meeting, the prime minister stirred a series of heated exchanges between the AKP and TUSIAD when Erdogan lashed into the organization, accusing it of being a supporter of the Feb. 28 process (Turkey's 1997 postmodern coup) and telling it to "mind its own business." TUSIAD responded with a calmly generic explanation of the important role civil society plays in a democracy, and rhetorical clashes between the organization and the AKP continued throughout the week. (Here, and to his credit, note that on Saturday President Gul defended TUSIAD's role to engage in the education debate.)

Though there is nothing necessarily improper about a civil exchange of views between the government and civil society organizations, there is something quite wrong about the government circumscribing the activities of organizations, a frequent action taken by authoritarian governments around the world to restrict civil society and the freedoms it enjoys under international law. Here, it should be noted that associations law in Turkey has undergone a series of meaningful reforms under AKP rule, including a major overhaul in 2004 to the Associations Law. The AKP should be lauded for these changes, but rhetoric such as that coming from Erdogan and Canikli is threatening.

In stirring defense of liberalism and the role of civil society, Milliyet columnist Mehmet Tezkan digs into the implication of Canikli's comments: that civil society organizations might only speak on issues related to their particular focus. According to Canikli, this would mean labor unions speak on workers' rights, bar associations speak only about matters of the judiciary, and doctors' associations speak only about medical issues. Such narrowly consigned responsibilities not only restricts the space in which civil society may act, but to some extent, also neutralizes them. Canikli seems to be saying that if civil society organizations get involved in politics, there will be consequences. Doing so not only sends a signal that civil society organizations should be apolitical, but that there might indeed be costs for being political.

If politicians in the government wish to criticize TUSIAD and other organizations within the public sphere, they should, of course, be free to do so. Yet, if these "punches" involve restrictive measures such as libel suits, criminal charges, and troubles registering and operating, there is a problem. Given Prime Minister Erdogan and others' understanding of the role of the press, there is little reason to think that the government's approach to civil society is much different -- and, indeed, leaders of numerous civil society organizations, at least in regard to the Kurdish problem, have been rounded up alongside journalists. Taking on an organization with the kind of international clout of TUSIAD is a different matter, though Erdogan and Canikli's statements in regard to the organization are revealing of the AKP's liberal democratic deficit (not that many political parties have proved much better upon coming to power).

This is the first clash this year between the AKP and TUSIAD, and the vitriol of Erdogan's rhetoric has raised serious eyebrows given that TUSIAD is a mainline pro-reform/pro-Europe organization that has in the past loaned support to the AKP's reform initiatives. In 2010, before the country's constitutional referendum in September, Prime Minister Erdogan demanded that TUSIAD take a stand for or against the constitution, arguing that those who stayed neutral would be "eliminated." EU Chief Negotiator Egeman Bagis followed up, declaring that he would challenge "the mental health and patriotism of anyone who intended to vote against" the referendum.

TUSIAD's position at the time was that Turkey needed a brand new constitution -- not simply a series of amendments designed to benefit the AKP. It should be remembered here that the amendments in 2010 were largely aimed to break the old establishment's hand on the judiciary, and in many ways, have since allowed the government to exert increased control of the organization. I know several Turks who opted to boycott or vote no against the referendum given these remarks and others like them. The latest set of exchanges is but a continuation of what has become prime minister's increasingly hostile stance toward the organization. More evidence of a rift between the AKP and TUSIAD emerged this week when news broke that a joint panel the two were planning to hold this month in Mardin had been cancelled.

And so what of the rhetoric of elimination? It is curious that Erdogan used this word when it also is the main accusation launched by Kurdish nationalists against the government -- they claim the government is trying to eliminate them, too. If the AKP respects these views, why the rhetoric? Is it mere populism against organizations like TUSIAD that are perceived by some AKP supporters as "elite"? Is it the prime minister's well-known tendency for rhetorical lavishes, and what many consider to be his quick temper? The government is clearly not intent to eliminate TUSIAD, but will it respect the organization and value its opinions? Most are not holding their breath.

The new film Fetih: 1453, which depicts the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul, has been used in the past two weeks as political capital against what Erdogan's critics receive is his sultan-like attitude toward politics. In the past couple weeks, videos have been circulating on YouTube and elsewhere of the film's caricature of Fatih Sultan Mehmet, the great Ottoman conqueror, juxtaposed with Erdogan (like this one). And while sultanism is in no way unique to Turkey or to the AKP in Turkey (the country's history of political leadership is a great testament to the truth of Lord Acton's famous axiom), the sheer number and intensity of these criticism and others like them represent a shift in how those fifty percent whom Erdogan and the AKP do not represent (see my election analysis) are increasingly alienated and wary at the prospect of the AKP's seeming strict majoritarian conception of democracy.

Some AKP politicians, including Erdogan, often seem baffled by this. Are they not democratizing the country? Have they not led the country's economy to be one of the strongest in Europe and the Middle East? Is Turkey not a great success story to be modeled elsewhere in the world? One might expect these party officials to bow down in gratitude to Erdogan as Orthodox Greeks do to Fatih Sultan Mehmet in 1453.

Such disbelief is not altogether uncommon for politicians who, often well-intentioned, place ends over means, and arrogantly, if not condescendingly, approach politics as if they know what is best for the direction of the country they govern and the citizens therein. But there is no such ijtihad. The prime minister and other AKP officials, not to mention those in opposition parties (which have their own democratic deficits and sultanist legacies!), represent the people -- they are not elected to tell the people what is best for them, or so says many of the criticisms launched against the party.

Yet the AKP and its dominant narrative of conquest and victimage (see past post) continues. Too often not only Prime Minister Erdogan, but all Turkish politicians, seem like great figures on a stage, players in some great drama that ordinary Turks simply sit back and watch. But real democratic politics, while perhaps dramatic as Burke argues, involve the citizens, too -- the citizens are players, too (not mere spectators), there is no director, and most importantly, no one gets to call places. No one can simply be eliminated.


(Note: An incomplete, draft version of this post appeared earlier today when I accidentally hit "Publish" instead of "Save Draft." Hopefully this complete version reads better, and makes a bit more sense.)


UPDATE I (3/8) -- Hurriyet Daily News columnist Gila Benmayor offers a bit more perspective on the recent clash between TUSIAD and the government, as well as criticism of the government's rushed attempt at this bill. As Benmayor argues, this is once again another example of the government pushing through massive reform packages with little consultation of civil society, especially civil society groups with whom it disagrees. The education package has now also lost the support of the Education Reform Initiative (ERG), which again, is not a Kemalist organization diametrically opposed to the AKP, but a moderate/reformist group that adopts a practical and non-ideological approach to the potential harms of the proposed legislation.

The Opening Salvo?

PHOTO from Girgir
Prime Minister Erdogan and religious leader Fethullah Gulen play a game of chess. Erdogan declares, "I have taken all of your pawns," to which Gulen retorts, "My child, you will force me to take your king."

Hakan Fidan is not a name soon to be forgotten nor is the recent row between the Gulen movement and the Erdogan government. Yet the row does not center on Fidan alone, but is rather a larger struggle for control sparked by the government's increasing uneasiness with the control Gulen wields over the judiciary and police -- or, what Vatan columnist Rusen Cakir (for English, thanks to Hurriyet Daily News, click here) points to as the "axis of courts with special authorities" by which the movement has been able to use police, prosecutors, and judges to target political opponents.

This week included announcements by some AKP officials that specially-authorized courts had gone too far, and included more aggressive talk of reforming Articles 250 and 251 in the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) by which these courts derive their power. Reform of these articles has been discussed for sometime, but never with as much focus. On Wednesday, Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek called for new arrangements to regulate the power of specially-authorized courts, though noting their past utility in dealing with state terrorism, namely Ergenekon. Yet, according to Cicek, while the courts are still needed, more focus needs to be paid to how they work in practice -- the implementation of Articles 250 and 251.

And, so what does this mean? Why is it significant? And why the shift in attitude? Let's start with the last question first. As prominent Islamic liberal Yeni Safak columnist Ali Bayramoglu explains in what is a fairly polemical interview with Cakir, the Hakan Fidan affair should be read as an intervention by Gulen -- a challenge to the AKP's authority. Tensions between Erdogan and Gulen have been on the rise given the amount of bad publicity the government has received thanks to the Ergenekon investigation, in particular the arrests of journalists Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener last March. Following these arrests, Erdogan dismissed Ergenekon lead prosecutor Zekeriya Oz, who is known to be close to the movement and a mastermind of the  Ergenekon probe (see past post).

As Radikal columnist Omer Sahin writes, Erdogan was content to use the Ergenekon prosecution to purge anti-government forces from the state, namely those perched in high places in the military and in the Turkish press. Gulen and Erdogan supported each other in this push from the AKP's 2002 entry into office up to just more than a year ago. Yet, as Bayramoglu observes (see his Wednesday column), now that the government has largely defeated resistance within the Turkish Armed Forces, things have changed.

This shift is further explained, as Bayramoglu continues, by the sheer frustration of Erdogan with the blatantly adversarial nature of the investigations. In August 2010, prosecutors went after police chief Hanefi Avci, who once sympathetic to Gulen, was arrested two days prior to a scheduled press conference at which Avci was going to present evidence as to how the movement had infiltrated the judiciary. The next year he was charged with membership in Ergenekon, as were Sik and Sener following similar attempts to bring light to the nexus between the Gulen organization and the police.

The cost of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations are simply no longer worth the effort, and now that prosecutions seem to be targeting figures with whom the AKP has friendly relations (i.e. Fidan) and potentially elements in the military that are now pro-AKP, Erdogan, wary of power that is not his own, is likely to come down hard on Gulen. He will do this by curtailing the judicial and police power the Gulen movement has established for itself, and the first target will likely be weakening the axis of power to which Cakir refers.

Yet still unexplained is the sheer tenacity of the Gulen organization toward the Erdogan government in this first serious battle. It is true that the past weeks have evinced tension building between the two groups (stirs over the match-fixing scandal and the Uludere strike, by which Gulen figures also tried to smear the MIT -- see past post), but the source of this latest conflict is still unsure. Perhaps it was an attempt to test Erdogan. Or, it might have been a way to express Gulen's opposition to the state's efforts to negotiate with the PKK, which could be restarted in coming months. A combination of the two? We are probably unlikely to ever know.

What we can say, though, is that what was witnessed last week was a serious test of Erdogan's authority. As Bayramoglu tells Cakir, the Gulen movement expressed a unique determination this time around: first, it mobilized its media outlets and network to smear the MIT (my question: was Uludere an opening act?); second, even when Erdogan expressed that he would standby Fidan, prosecutor Sadrettin Sarikaya not only continued in his pursuit of Fidan, but upped the ante by issuing arrest warrants for four high-ranking intelligence officials. It was only when Erdogan suspended top brass officials in the police that Gulen seemed to back down.

But the end is likely not over. Bayramoglu conjectures that Gulen may take to the sidelines, realizing that Erdogan is not likely to allow Gulen to continue such free-wielding control of the police and judiciary, though not all are so sure. For sure, Erdogan does not want to see a shakeup before he ascends to the presidency in 2014 and passes a new constitution that he likely still hopes will bolster his power once there but at the same time it is unclear if Gulen will be so comfortable with his rise -- and, just what the exiled leader might do about it. As Cakir writes, rather fatalistically I might add, such a clash will largely be spectacle for most Turks, third parties will not matter, and as TUSIAD head Umit Boyner expressed last week, will simply observe in horror.


UPDATE I (2/25) -- Today's Zaman columnist Emre Uslu had a column on Friday which I nearly missed and in which the columnist postulates a conspiracy against the Gulen movement in which he implies the government is complicit. According to Uslu, the government has long been intent on curbing the powers of specially-authorized courts, and this latest episode rather was an operation against the Gulen movement. From Uslu:

If this insistent call for the amendment of Articles 250 and 251 of the anti-terror bill had been made in conjunction with the MİT crisis, I would believe that it had something to do with the MİT crisis. However, this call was made 10 days before the outbreak of the MİT crisis, in a report by the Sabah daily. The report said: “It is possible to associate every offense with terror charges, which could be further subjected to special investigation and trial procedures. To ensure the right to a fair trial, Articles 250, 251 and 252 of the Code on Criminal Procedure [CMK] on the workings of special courts and their procedures shall be revised.”

The insistent calls after the MİT crisis made reference to the same points. The meaning of this is obvious: The KCK investigations will be conducted more leniently, and KCK suspects will be released.

If you live in a country like Turkey; are aware that the KCK investigations will be ceased and the relevant parties to those protocols agreed to the release of KCK suspects; if you have read in a paper, known for its staunch support of the government before the outbreak of the MİT crisis, that Articles 250 and 251 will be revised; and all writers and columnists supportive of the KCK-AKP-MİT equation insistently called for the amendment of Articles 250, 251 and 252 of the CMK when the MİT crisis erupted; and if you call all of these a coincidence, you are surely naïve.

And for these reasons, I would say that the situation presented to us as an MİT crisis is in fact an operation jointly conducted by MİT, the pro-negotiation figures within the AKP and some pro-negotiation intellectuals. The prosecutor and the police department were framed in this operation; MİT planned and executed this operation. The signals from the AKP show that this operation will be completed, despite the decision by the Court of Appeals that the KCK is a terror organization. You will see that Articles 250, 251 and 252 of the CMK will be amended, the KCK suspects will be released and pro-Gülen movement bureaucrats will be removed from duty."

Sabah is a paper friendly to Prime Minister Erdogan, and according to Uslu, it is the government to blame for the excesses of the Ergenekon investigation, not the Gulen movement. Of course, this is highly unlikely given that it is the prime minister who ordered Oz's dismissal after the Sik/Sener arrest and the targeting of Avci, but the accusation is there all the same. Uslu also does a good job of further smearing the AKP by including a desire to release KCK/PKK suspects as part of the operation, thereby using the Kurdish issue to heighten tension.

While several figures, especially those in the government such as Yalcin Akdogan, have done their best to play down tensions, revelations of Uslu and others point to some sectors in the Gulen movement who are not so content to simply sit by sidelines.

Has Erdogan Won?

PHOTO from Cumhuriyet

In what many are perceiving as the first big battle between Gulen-friendly and not-so-Gulen-friendly ranks within the AKP, it seems Prime Minister Erdogan has won. Yesterday the parliament passed a law to protect not only Hakan Fidan, but expand the prime minister's power to have the last word on prosecutions targeting "state officials the prime minister has assigned with special tasks." The law has been in the works since the start of the crisis.

The law was passed with fierce resistance from opposition parties who feared the expansion of the prime minister's executive power. In order to get it through, the AKP limited the scope of protection to be extended from all prime ministerial appointees to those "assigned with special tasks."

Additionally, the General Directorate for Security on Tuesday dismissed nine officials in the Istanbul police department. All officials were working as part of a unit tasked with the KCK operations, and were presumably fired from their duties in connection with the recent Fidan probe. Two other high-ranking police officials had been removed last week.  Also, a large number of persons who had just on Monday been picked up in KCK operations were released, leading some observers to speculate a major shift in the direction of the KCK operations, though perhaps a bit too prematurely.

And, if the police purges and new law were not enough, Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin has given his approval to the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) to begin an investigation of Sadrettin Sarikaya, who -- up until the weekend, when he was dismissed -- was overseeing the proble into MIT. Sarikaya is charged with violating the secrecy of the prosecution and abusing his power, and the investigation could result in disciplinary proceedings and, possibly, a criminal trial.

Looking back on it all, one cannot help but agree with Turkish Businessmen and Industrialists' Association (TUSIAD) head Umit Boyner, who earlier this week remarked that TUSIAD was watching in horror as the state fought with itself. Boyner described the crisis as a shadow play of opposing figures, an apt description of an affair that will take a long time to understand. Yet the play might not be over. Erdogan has won the battle, but there might well be a war to be fought.


UPDATE I (2/19) -- 700 Istanbul police officers working in departments related to intelligence, terrorism, and organized crime of the Istanbul Emniyet have been re-assigned to the southeast. The police are reported to have been engaged in the Ergenekon and KCK investigations. Shakeup indeed.

On Saturday, before the announcements of the reassigned officers, Erdogan, recovered from surgery, spoke at a youth rally where he declared the "institutions of our state" and the "sons of our nation" to be at peace. Erdogan was referring to speculation about the recent conflict within the state--that between his supporters and the Gulen movement.

For one interpretation of the remarks, see Fatih Altayli's column in Habertürk. Altayli believes Erdogan has come down in support of the wing in his party known to be sympathetic to the National Outlook (Milli Gorus) movement, which might be insufficiently explained as a conservative view propagating an idea that nation and state are one. For an extended explanation, see past posts.

And the Battle Continues . . .

PHOTO from Radikal

There are two more developments to report in the recent MIT episode.

The first was a series of early morning raids of mostly labor unions accused of working with the KCK to foment protests on what will be tomorrow's anniversary of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan's capture. The raids occurred in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and throughout the southeast, and resulted in the detention of over 100 people.

The operations might have been ordered by Sadrettin Sarikaya, who was relieved of his duties in the MIT case, but whom some reporters report is still directing the KCK operations alongside also specially-authorized prosecutor Bilal Bayraktar.

The second involves a statement made by Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag in defense of Hakan Fidan. Defending Fidan and MIT-led operations, Bozdag said that the probe into MIT seriously compromises intelligence activities, and in doing, basically verified that the MIT had infiltrated the KCK. Concerns have been raised that the MIT probe endangers MIT agents who are currently working undercover and that these agents could be weeded out and then assassinated by the PKK.

Meanwhile, Istanbul Deputy Chief Prosecutor Fikret Secen said the MIT may have abused its power and helped the PKK carry out terrorist activities. Secen said that it was not beyond the judiciary's grasp to probe intelligence agents who might have been involved in such activities while at the same time being careful to say that the probe was not related to state policies and in no way involved the negotiations that took place in Oslo.

The parliamentary proposal aimed to protect Fidan was approved by the parliament's justice commission on Monday, and will now make its way to the full assembly for a vote. Commenting on the new law, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said it was unclear at this time if the final law would protect military officials as well, a claim being launched at the government by critics from both the Gulen movement and opposition parties. The fact that these two groups would be united on this front shows one just how much the political scene has changed. For an example of a Gulen-friendly argument against the new law, see Mumtazer Turkone's column in Today's Zaman.

Fitna

PHOTO from Cumhuriyet

Sadrettin Sarikaya, the specially-authorized prosecutor at the center of the recent probe into MIT, has been removed from the MIT case after he boldly proceeded to issue arrest warrants on Friday for four top intelligence officials.

Chief Prosecutor Turan Colakkadi said Sarikaya had withheld information from from his superiors and violated the secrecy of the investigation he was conducting. The allegations stem from a leak to the media last week that Colakkadi was planning to interrogate MIT head Hakan Fidan, his predecessor, Emre Taner, and two other top officials regarding alleged participation of the intelligence organization in PKK terrorism (see posts from earlier this week).

Meanwhile, speculation continues to boil as to what forces are behind the apparent conflict within the state. According to Cumhuriyet, the current conflict is between Erdogan and forces loyal to Fethullah Gulen and the large Islamic community. Though the two groups have experienced serious tension in the past year, this is the first time in which the two groups appear to be openly challenging each other.

Based in Pennsylvania, Gulen leads "the Cemaat," which exists of perhaps up to 6 million supporters and even more sympathizers. The Gulen movement, or Hizmet movement as its followers refer to it, is critical to the electoral support the AKP has enjoyed over the years, though the organization avows to eschew political affairs. Yet an easy review of its website speaks to the contrary.

Two recent developments might explain this recent bout of in-fighting:

First, Prime Minister Erdogan, who in many ways shares a view quite different from Gulen, has recently cleared his way to accede as president in 2014 (see past posts). With Erdogan as president and many top AKP lawmakers unable to serve again in parliament due to the AKP's three term limit, there will be a major shuffle within the party in which the Gulen movement -- as a major component of the AKP coalition -- will play a part. Between 2014 and 2015, Turkey will experience presidential, parliamentary, and municipal elections, and so opportunity for major transformation within the party, the dominant force in Turkey, will have profound implications for the future. Asserting its power now could well be a way of firing the first shot, perhaps a warning signal to the prime minister and other elements in the party of the movement's prowess.

Second, the prime minister may well be preparing to re-open negotiations with the PKK, a move that is opposed by the Gulen movement. Gulen and his followers take a harder-line stance on making peace with the PKK, adopting the view that Turks and Kurds might come together based on a Sunni Islamic supra-identity. My interviews in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast attest to Kurdish nationalists, including those who are PKK-affiliated, being more afraid of the Gulenists than traditional Turkish nationalists.

For years, the Gulen movement has accused the PKK and the Turkish state of working in cahoots with one another (see the litany of Zaman articles from the past five years), and the Ergenekon investigations, led by Gulen-friendly prosecutors, have routinely featured accusations that the Turkish deep state and the PKK worked frequently in tandem with each other. These accusations, in addition to the largely successful co-optation of many disempowered Kurds thanks to Gulen/AKP-led charities and social services, have put serious pressure on Kurdish nationalists while earning their furor.

Yet in 2009-2010, the prime minister seemed to take a different tack. Instead of aiming to defeat Kurdish nationalism through Islamist bananas alone, Erdogan began to rely increasingly on the MIT and direct negotiations with the PKK. As Avni Ozgurel discusses in an interview with Nese Duzel in Taraf, the MIT underwent a major transformation under the leadership of its former director Emre Taner. Under his leadership, a groundbreaking analysis was issued that articulated the Kurdish issue as the major obstacle to Turkish democratization and the latter as the means to solve the former. In this context, MIT officials began to call for political solutions for the conflict, including a re-working of Kurdish citizenship (see former deputy director Cevat Ones's statements as early as 2007), Kurdish language and other minority rights, and in some instances, even an amnesty for the PKK and direct negotiations.

The former director is now subject to an arrest warrant issued by Sarikaya, and Hakan Fidan, now at the center of the current imboglio, was his deputy director. Fidan, close to Erdogan, no doubt brought the prime minister closer to the MIT paradigm, and the AKP government's strategy began to shift. In 2009, when the government released its so-called "democratic opening," many of the steps taken were in line with what was MIT policy at the time. Yet the opening went awry soon after it started when the likely MIT-negotiated return of PKK rebels at the Habur border gate between Turkey and Iraq resulted in what appeared to be PKK victory celebrations. The spectacle largely angered the public, cost the AKP and its proposed initiative a great deal of political capital, and left Erdogan feeling seriously betrayed.

Though talks with the PKK continued and despite an upsurge in terrorist violence throughout the next year (the worst since PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan's capture), Erdogan halted negotiations soon after last June's elections and talks have not picked up since. Yet news did break of prior negotiations when audio recordings of negotiations between MIT agents and PKK representatives in Oslo were leaked to the press last September. Erdogan, who had previously denied that negotiations were taking place, came forward and defended the MIT, including Fidan, whose voice was presumed to be a leading one in the tapes. At the time, Erdogan made a distinction between "the state" and "the government," arguing the former was able to negotiate with whomever it pleased if the ultimate aim was peace.

It must be said that the democratic opening was also supported at the beginning by forces friendly to Gulen, and the Police Academy, which is chalk full of Gulenists, played a leading role at the beginning of the public initiative. All the same, at some point, and likely after Habur, attitudes changed and a conflict that is not at all public could well have emerged between those supporting the negotiations and those who did not. The source of the leaked audio tapes, which might also be interpreted as targeting the prime minister, is still not known.

According to Ozgurel, there is yet another dimension to the possible Gulen-Erdogan conflict -- the tension between the MIT, which has remained largely free from Gulen influence, and the police, over which Gulen is widely seen to assert a considerable degree of influence. The police have felt largely left out of the government's dealing with the PKK whereby the MIT has taken the lead. In this way, the conflict might be seen as one between institutions, though both institutions can also be interpreted as proxies for different groups/paradigms competing for power.


UPDATE I (2/14) --  Thickening the plot a bit, PKK political spokesman Zubeyir Aydar has said that police officials are responsible for the leaks of the audio tapes. The PKK might also have had reasons to leak the tapes and embarrass the prime minister, but the accusation certainly makes the recent row a bit more interesting.

And Things Just Get Weirder . . .

Specially-authorized prosecutor Sadrettin Sarikaya has apparently issued immediate detention orders for former MIT head Emre Taner and current MIT undersecretary Afet Gunes, as well as two other MIT officials. The detention orders were issued just days after news broke that Sarikaya was conducting a probe into the possible involvement of MIT in perpetrating PKK terrorism. The ultimate target of the investigation could well be Prime Minister Erdogan (for background, see yesterday's post).

The detention order is a bold move and the first of its kind. Apparently police also searched the homes of the agents. Erdogan is standing by MIT, insisting yesterday and before the detention orders that Sarikaya did not have the authority to question Taner, Gunes, or current MIT head Hakan Fidan without first seeking his approval.

Instead of reporting to the prosecutor's office in Istanbul, Fidan paid a visit to President Gul's office in Ankara while the prime minister's office spearheaded efforts to craft legislation to further shield MIT agents from prosecution. Legislation is said to include provisions that could make it outright illegal to prosecute intelligence officials, a move that has sparked some to criticize the government as hypocritical (it had no problem with prior specially-authorized prosecutions) and anti-democratic. Sarikaya's persistence flies in the face of these efforts, and might be read as a direct challenge to Erdogan's authority.

The investigation has prompted a firestorm of speculation as to what forces and motivations might be behind Sarikaya's investigation. So far, the rumors have included conjectures that elements within the state opposed to the dovish stance the MIT has taken toward the PKK are behind the investigation (see Yeni Safak's Abdulkadir Selvi), as well as notions that Sarikaya is being directed by the Gulen movement, which is largely thought to have deeply penetrated critical positions in the police and judiciary (see .

Tensions within AKP ranks have made themselves increasingly manifest in recent months (see past post), and Gulen is thought also to oppose moves the Erdogan government has made to negotiate with the PKK. Additionally, rivalry between the MIT and the police has been considered to be high for sometime, and according to some observers, might have increased in recent months as MIT agents who had infiltrated KCK were (and this is speculation) detained in the operations against the illegal organization.

Could the same forces behind the audio tapes leaked in September also be responsible for Sarikaya? And is it a matter of doves versus hawks, Erdogan versus Gulen, or some other power struggle/conspiracy that has yet to be revealed?

One has to be careful with conspiracy theories, but there is obviously something fishy going on.

Weakening Minority Rights in Parliament

PHOTO from Hurriyet Daily News

At a time when Turkey is gearing up to craft a new constitution, its parliament is currently drafting changes to its rules that would significantly shorten the period of debate, extend sessions into the weekend if necessary, and limit proposals to draft laws.

The ruling AKP is claiming the rules are intended to streamline debate and increase parliamentary efficiency while opposition parties are claiming the new regulations are intended to silence opposition voices (for specific changes, click here). The debate reached a climax yesterday when the CHP, the largest opposition party, stormed the rostrum after Speaker Cemil Cicek closed debate after a five hour standoff wherein CHP and BDP lawmakers shouted slogans against the speaker, forcing Cicek to call numerous recesses.

The eventual result was a fistfight after Cicek closed the session. Fistfights are not altogether uncommon in the parliament, and in 2001, a similar debate over rules left one parliamentarian dead of a heart attack after a fight broke out. Cicek has been trying for the past week to reach a compromise between the AKP and opposition parties, though his efforts have clearly failed.

All three opposition parties are united against the rules changes, and claim the AKP is attempting to fix the rules ahead of the constitutional draft being submitted to the general assembly in order to easily force the document out of parliament and submit it to referendum, as the party did the 2010 amendment package. Though the AKP is three votes shy of the 330 votes (3/5 majority) it needs to pass the new constitution in parliament and take it to referendum (as it did in 2010), the opposition fears that the AKP could well cobble together this majority rather than engage all parties in a more consensual process.

Clearly such an endeavor would hurt the legitimacy of a new constitution and certainly contradict the ruling party's stated objective of achieving the widest degree of consensus possible -- but, here again, the operative word is "possible," and efforts to build consensus will depend on just how the AKP interprets this mission, and how committed it will remain to it. A party operating with a solid 3/5 majority since its entrance to parliament in 2002, consensus-building has not exactly been the party's forté, nor has it, in all fairness, to any Turkish political party. For more on this point, see E. Fuat Keyman and Meltem Muftuler-Bac's recent article in the January issue of the Journal of Democracy.

The appropriateness of fist-fighting aside, the move to change the rules has led opposition parties to boycott the constitutional reconciliattion commission charged with framing a new civilian constitution, and has, in general, detracted from the commission's task-at-hand. The commission is comprised of  12 members (three from every party) and is designed to garner consensus among political parties and civil society.

At this phase of the re-drafting process, the commission is currently seeking proposals from politicians and civil society groups, which up until recently, could be viewed publicly on this website parliament setup in October. Yet at the beginning of February the commission decided to hide the substance of proposals being submitted in order to protect the names of individuals and groups submitting them since some were quite controversial. At the moment, only the names of individuals and groups submitting proposals are left on the site. For more, see this front-page article from the Jan. 27 edition of Milliyet.

Crisis in the State

PHOTO from Radikal

All hell began to break out within Turkey's corridors for power on Tuesday night when it was leaked to the media that the country's top intelligence officials were being summoned by a prosecutor to answer for their possible role in PKK terrorist activities.

The three officials, MIT director Hakan Fidan, his predecessor Emre Taner, and MIT undersecretary Afet Gunes, are being called to account for what some media reports claim is their possible role in helping transmitting instructions to carry out PKK terror attacks or standing by while such transmissions took place. One accusation is that the MIT, under Taner's leadership and then Fidan's, wielded control of the KCK, the PKK's so-called urban wing. As far-fetched as these accounts are (and most everyone is still struggling to make sense of them), their target could well be Prime Minister Erdogan.

In September, audio tapes were released detailing negotiations between MIT officials and PKK leaders who have since been confirmed to have been conducting peace talks in Oslo. At the time, Erdogan vowed to stand by Fidan, who is a close confidant and on whom the prime minister has heavily relied to broker a solution to the Kurdish conflict.  Taner, Fidan's predecessor, was the architect of the talks, which by all knowledge Erdogan approved and encouraged up until last June's elections when negotiations collapsed.

MIT, for its part, is insisting that the intelligence officials cannot be questioned without the approval of the prime minister according to MIT law. The specially-authorized prosecutor behind the investigation, Sadrettin Sarikaya, is the same prosecutor responsible for the KCK operations that have landed over 3,500 in individuals in detention.

Ordinarily, prosecutors would have to attain administrative permission to question intelligence officials, but Hurriyet reports this is not the case for specially-authorized prosecutors conducting terror probes. Interestingly, Istanbul chief prosecutor Fikret Secen denied the reports that Fidan, Taner, and Gunes were being called for questioning on Tuesday night, evidence that perhaps Secen did not know of Sarikaya's intention. Government officials have seemed equally surprised.

To add another twist, two high-ranking official's in Istanbul's Directorate for Security have been re-assigned. Yurt Atayun, head of the department for anti-terrorism, and Erol Demirhan, head of the department for intelligence, have both been removed from their posts. The two officials have been key to the KCK operations, and their removal is most likely linked to the investigation into MIT.

So far Erdogan has stood by Fidan, and just what the coming days will hold as to just what the government will do, what forces are behind the investigation into MIT, and what their motives are remains largely anyone's guess.

Why the Prime Minister Cares About Paul Auster

PHOTO from Hurriyet

Paul Auster and Prime Minister Erdogan stirred a controversy after Auster gave an interview to Hurriyet in late January in which the Jewish-American author said he would not visit Turkey due to the number of imprisoned writers. Prime Minister Erdogan fired back at his party's parliamentary group meeting a few days later, calling Auster "ignorant" and hypocritical for visiting Israel, which the author visited in 2010. The spar between the two men only ratcheted up when Auster issued a response in the New York Times in which the prominent author reiterated his concerns about press freedom in Turkey. CHP opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu soon jumped into the fray, inviting Auster to come to Turkey at his invitation, after which another back-and-forth ensued in which Erdogan said Kilicdaroglu and Auster should "go for a picnic together" atop a hill in Israel overlooking Gaza.

Just why these remarks triggered such a firestorm is something of a mystery to outsiders of Turkey (I have had four people ask me this in the past two days), but it has a lot to do with the sensitivity of the prime minister and the political opportunism involved on all sides. After all, this is politics. If Erdogan had simply let the author's comments go by the wayside when first they were issued, this would be a non-story. Yet Erdogan decided to attack Auster, not only contradicting his claim writers were being imprisoned in Turkey for expressing their views (according to Erdogan's public statements, these writes are "terrorists," people who plotted to overthrow the government or who supported the PKK), but linked Auster to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a move sure to win him popular support among the party's base.

As far as I can tell, Auster has been largely ambivalent on the issue of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, but at the same time, Erdogan's ad hominem attack on Auster is more deflection than reasoned response, and in turn, Kilicdaroglu's backing of Auster an attempt to put raise the profile of the continued attacks on press freedom in Turkey, and of course, win political points in so doing. To me, what is significant here is that Auster's comments, whose Jewish ancestry and shakiness on the issue of occupation make for an easy target, were so singled out by prime minister. Erdogan's remarks, while not necessarily anti-Semitic, show the familiar lack of control for which the prime minister has often been criticized by friends and enemies alike.

Most interesting here is how Erdogan and others in the AKP, as well as AKP-friendly public opinion leaders, were quick to label Auster as either a victim or perpetrator of a massive smear campaign designed to discredit the party. Sabah columnist Nazli Ilacak portrays Auster as seriously misinformed, but places the blame on an organized psychological campaign being carried out against the AKP-led government. Is the misinformation that made its way to Auster the product of Ergenekon? Is this the kind of black-ops for which former General Chief of Staff Ilker Basbug is currently imprisoned?

According to AKP Vice President Bulent Gedikli, the answer is yes. In a statement made yesterday, Gedikli said, "Paul Auster is part of the plot." "What plot?" I might ask, but many in the AKP, including a number of their supporters, would dismiss me as a fool -- and do so quite sincerely.

The narrative of many in and supportive of the AKP is defined by victimage, of shadowy forces conspiring to keep them at the bottom ranks of society and far removed from political power even when every indication of the Turkey that exists after nearly ten years of AKP rule is that the reality could be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, this narrative is largely a by-product of real policies in over 80 years of Turkish history that were designed to do just this -- most significant among them, at least in terms of the historical memory of those currently in power, the Feb. 28 process that brought down the elected Refah party government in 1997 and the policies to follow that were designed to, though not so successfully, to keep political Islam in its place and guard against the rise of a pious majority. The narrative is one of oppression, and democracy, for many, therefore understood solely in terms of allowing for the majority, long downtrodden, to finally take the reigns of power. For those who imagine plots at every corner and shadowy networks bent on destruction, democracy is about liberation, but it is not necessarily liberal.

What the recent Auster imbroglio reveals is that these myths are not gone from historical memory, and despite ten years of dominant party politics, will likely not be gone anytime soon. Also revealed is that playing on these anxieties, especially if the opponent is as easy a target as Auster, can garner a good bit of political capital. At the end of the day, Erdogan likely emerged stronger and the victim mentality ever more entrenched while few will remember who Paul Auster is in a few months time.

For Hrant, For Justice, For Turkey

PHOTO from Birgün

Perhaps no issue is more revealing of the struggle for liberal democracy in Turkey than the assassination of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and the trial of members of a likely state-linked organization that gunned him down on Jan. 19, 2007.

Almost five years to the date of what was a very calculated murder, the Istanbul court hearing the case of 19 defendants accused of participating in the conspiracy to slay Dink ruled on Jan. 17 that there was indeed no organization, no conspiracy. Instead, the court portrayed the assassination as a random act of violence carried out by two ultra-nationalist youths acting alone. The court did not even touch the issue of links between state officials and the organization that have been revealed in the five years following the assassination. For more on the verdict from Reporters Without Borders, click here.

Not a Random Act of Violence

Dink presaged his murder, telling friends before his murder "that his heart was a 'timid pigeon' waiting for bad things to happen (see June 26, 2008 post). Dink had begun receiving threats from ultra-nationalists in 2004 following an article he wrote for the Turkish Armenian paper Agos, over which he presided as editor. In the article, Dink claimed that Sabiha Gokcen, Ataturk's much beloved adopted daughter, was an Armenian orphan. The article earned him the scorn of then Chief of General Staff Yasar Buyukanit, who denounced the article as a crime against national unity.

Before 2006, Dink had been subject to numerous court cases because of his questioning of an ethno-national conception of Turkish identity and his writing on the 1915 massacre of tens of thousands of Armenians. Throughout his work, Dink tried to bridge divides between Turks, Armenians, and Turkish Armenians, challenging both Turkish and Armenian identity, polarizing approaches to the genocide issue, and the general recalcitrance of the two sides. He did this as only a Turkish Armenian could, and his thinking challenged fellow Turkish citizens and ethnic Armenians alike. Most of all, Dink represented the expression of difference -- not just being different, but expressing it, and doing so always as an individual guided by free thought and its commensurate dignities. His writing, and that he attracted so many fans, Turkish and Armenians, is a testament to where Turkey has come since its founding and the longing for liberalism shared by so many of its citizens.

Yet not all were so content with Dink's ideas, his constant challenging of Turkish state and society. In 2004, Dink began receiving numerous death threats. The gravity of their danger to Dink's life prompted the deputy director of security in Istanbul to order police in Bakirkoy, where he lived, and Sisli, where he worked at Agos, to make provide for his protection.

In February 2006, intelligence of the murder conspiracy to which he would soon fall victim made their way from police in Trabzon to Istanbul. The memo from security officials in Trabzon stated, and quite simply, that Yasin Hayal, a known ultra-nationalist in the Black Sea province, was going to kill Dink. Less than one year later, Hayal, acting alongside 17-year-old gunman Ogun Samast, gunned down Dink outside Agos's offices.

Yet it seems the memo, ranked "low priority" by Trabzon police chief Ramazan Akyurek, was not paid much attention, if any, by Istanbul police, and little action was taken by either authority nor the gendarme in Trabzon, who were also watching the conspirators, to halt the assassination. Akyurek has since been promoted to head the Board of Inspectors in the General Directorate for Security. Dink knew his death was coming, and so did members of the Istanbul and Trabzon police, as well as the Trabzon gendarme. Meanwhile, Nedim Sener, one of the journalists who took the Dink investigation seriously and documented what the police knew before the murder, has been jailed on charges of being linked to the Ergenekon terrorist organization.

To offer further damning evidence of the neglect -- and quite possibly, involvement -- of elements within the Turkish security forces, one of Dink's assassins, young trigger-man Ogun Samast, posed with police officers in Samsun behind a Turkish flag just two days after the murder. While government officials have complimented themselves on apprehending Samast and other conspirators soon after the murder, adequate explanations for this photograph and the events before the murder have yet to come to the forefront, and according to many of Dink's supporters, have indeed been subject to a massive cover-up in which the state is complicit.

Where Does the Government Fit In?

Indeed, the more than four-year trial of Dink's conspirators has been hindered from the beginning due to an inability, and perhaps unwillingness, to procure evidence from state security offices, as well as government agencies such as the Telecommunications Board (TIB), which only last December turned over evidence documenting phone conversations and text message exchanges between the conspirators. TIB, citing a 2007 provision by the Justice Ministry related to the use of phone records in criminal investigations, had refused to turn over evidence for more than four years following the murder. Video footage of the street on which Dink was shot was erased from cameras soon after the incident, another fact that has led to accusations against the police ranging from neglect to complicity.

As Hurriyet columnist Sedat Ergin points out, efforts, or lack thereof, to hold state officials to account for their role in the murder have given way to serious misgivings on the part of the Turkish public. In 2008, and administrative court acquitted police of neglect while failing to really delve into the events in the days and months before the murder, and in 2009, another effort to investigate the role of security officials was blocked by the Interior Ministry, which at the time and just as today, was controlled by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The gendarme is the only state organ wherein an official has been found responsible for neglecting to prevent Dink's murder.

Though AKP government officials are always careful to point to the independence and integrity of judicial processes, the fact that the government now has firmer control of the judiciary has caused many critics, both of the government and the investigation into Dink's murder, to point their finger at the government. When the Dink investigation started in 2007, the government did not have the control over judicial organs, such as the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), that it currently wields. (Click here for a bit of insight as to how the AKP has gained more control through amending the constitution to give its elected representatives the ability to appoint members to this body and Turkey's high courts. See also this past post.) The HSYK is currently investigating the presiding judge in the case, Rustem Eryilmaz, as well as prosecutor Hikmet Usta, though on grounds that the two inappropriately spoke out publicly after the verdict rather than that they mishandled the case.

More cogent criticism centers on the government's relation to the police. As Milliyet columnist Metin Munir indicates (luckily, Hurriyet Daily News has translated this column into English, and so it can be read here), the real blame should be placed on the government's failure to prevent the police from hindering the investigation. According to Munir,

Nobody is blaming the government for not interfering with the judiciary; its guilt is in not intervening with the police, with the intelligence organization and in not demonstrating the necessary attention to bring out the truth. In Turkey, judges and prosecutors are not as strong and independent as, for example, in the United States, the United Kingdom or Italy.

While in the West the prosecutor commands the police, in Turkey the police command the prosecutor. This is the truth in practical terms, especially in politically sensitive cases.

The judges are also bound to prosecute whatever is in the indictments presented to them. The government does not command the courts and prosecutors. But it does command the security forces. For this reason, it has its share of responsibility in the verdict the court has ruled. It could have put pressure on the police to provide that a more comprehensive and a stronger file be handed over to the prosecutor. It did not.

The government is still boasting about catching the murderer in 32 hours. This is not a matter to be proud of; it a matter to be ashamed of. Who was going to kill Dink and when it was going to happen were known by security forces days before the murder. If the incident was stopped at that time and the murder was prevented, then yes, it could have been a matter of which to boast. But it is not hugely ingenious to identify the assassin and then catch the killer.

This is what the government has to explain: Why isn’t the entire organization, the one for which the killer acted as a hit man, foiled and punished even if it is five years that have passed since the murder? What is the reason for the systematic reluctance on this matter?

Mustafa Akyol, generally more sympathetic of the AKP, explains that this reluctance might be driven by the fact that many of the bureaucrats and police who neglected to properly investigate Dink's murder (and, my words, not his, but perhaps even cover up critical aspects of the killing) are now aligned with the AKP and have been appointed to key positions within the government. These include not only Akyurek, but also former Istanbul police chief Celalettin Cerrah, headed the Istanbul police at the time of Dink's murder. The government has never allowed Cerrah to be questioned in relation to the case, and in 2009, he was appointed a provincial governorship in Osmaniye. Similarly, the failure of the AKP to put pressure on TIB and the obstructive role of the Interior Ministry throughout the investigation give great cause for concern.

A Chance for Redemption?

Soon after the verdict, Dink family lawyer Fethiye Cetin declared that the effort to unveil the truth behind Dink's murder had only just begun, and it is quite possible this is the case. An indignant Cetin has already appealed to the Supreme Court, which will likely render a decision in one year's time. Hikmet Usta, the Istanbul prosecutor charged with the case, has also made an appeal, joining Cetin in denouncing the court's inability to find evidence that the crime was the premeditated work of a criminal organization as a complete oversight of the facts presented.

Division in the Ranks

PHOTO from Radikal

Though Turkish society is pretty evenly divided between those who support the ruling AKP and those who do not, perhaps the more important divide in terms of determining the county's trajectory is within the government.

AKP officials have been careful to play down any division within party ranks, but events over the past year hint of a fissure between a faction in the party loyal to Prime Minister Erdogan and another closely aligned with Fethullah Gulen, a religious leader based in Pennsylvania who runs the Hizmet movement, a powerful network consisting of tens of thousands of followers (of those sympathetic to the movement, there are estimates well over 5 million) that has sought to exert its influence within the state and Turkish society.

Though Gulen and his supporters have stopped short of forming a political party, they have managed to gain key positions within state institutions and the ruling party.  (For a nuanced take of the movement's engagement with state institutions, including its tactics and ruminations of its overall strategy, see Berna Turam's Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement.)

Further, critical investigations into the movement's activities have not been welcome. As foreign journalist Justin Vela explored last week in Foreign Policy, allegations have long existed that the movement is behind the operations against Ergenekon, the opaque deep-state organization accused of terrorism and plots to overthrow the state. Indeed, it was the Gulen movement journalist Ahmet Şık was investigating when he was charged as a member of Ergenekon.

While Gulenists wield considerable influence in the AKP, they do not necessarily determine the direction of the party, and divisions within AKP's ranks in recent months indicate what, according to many observers, is a power struggle between the Hizmet/Gulen movement and Prime Minister Erdogan.

These include a debate last month on a law that reduced sentences for wealthy businessmen charged with fixing football matches, as well as a difference in approaching the air strikes at Uludere that killed 34 Kurdish smugglers. In the latter instance, Prime Minister Erdogan defended the military and intelligence services while Gulen-affiliated press leveled accusations that the strikes were the work of the "deep state." For an example, in Turkish, see this op-ed in Zaman criticizing the government for not noticing what the author alleges is a deep-state conspiracy.

The most recent evidence of a difference of opinion between the two parties centers on whether former Chief of General Staff Ilker Basbug, who was arrested little more than a week ago, should be tried at the Constitutional Court or by the specially-authorized court that issued the warrant for his arrest. Most interestingly, President Gul, thought to be friendly to the Gulen movement, has broken ranks with it and called for Basbug to be tried at the Constitutional Court in accordance with what seems like a relatively clear dictate (Article 148) in the Turkish Constitution that chiefs of staff and force commanders are to be tried at the Supreme Court (for more on Basbug, and the rather nonsensical charges of how the former commander could overthrow the government using website, see past posts and this excellent bit of analysis by Gareth Jenkins). Prime Minister Erdogan, for his part, has said he supports Basbug's release pending trial.

Yet AKP members close to the Gulen movement disagree with both these positions. Instead, they have asserted that Basbug can be tried by the specially-authorized court because the charges against him are not related to his duties as Chief of General Staff and that the release of Basbug and other serving and retired military officials charged in connection with membership in Ergenekon would only encourage further acts of terrorism.

One of the most outspoken of these members is deputy chairman Huseyin Celik, who is known to be quite close to the Hizmet movement and before served as Minister of Education. In response to Gul, Celik reaffirmed his position that Basbug can be tried before the specially-authorized court. Gulen-affiliated Zaman ran Celik's comments last Thursday (in Turkish, click here). Other AKP members known to be close to Gulen have also taken Celik's view, including deputy chairman Mustafa Elitas, who contended that the president's views were not important, as well as Ayhan Sefer Ustun and Burhan Kuzu, who are, respectively, heads of the parliament's human rights and constitutional commissions.

 Enough is Enough?
 
At the same time parliament appears divided on the issue of Basbug, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc announced last Wednesday that elected CHP deputies Mustafa Balbay and Mehmet Haberal, who are also accused of membership in Ergenekon, should be released and take their seats in parliament. His words were followed by those of Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin, who announced that the party would soon unveil judicial reform to shorten detention periods and bring about speedier trials.

Arinc and Ergin's announcement followed the release of a critical report on detention and specially-authorized courts by Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights. For the full report, click here.

As Vatan columnist Bilal Cetin reflected last week, recent developments lead to the conclusion that the winds are changing in Ankara. Has the prime minister grown further wary of international criticism pertaining to long detention times and jailed members of parliament? Is there a significant segment within the party, the prime minister included, that have themselves grown wary of the unwieldy nature of the Ergenekon investigation?  There were hints of this when Ergenekon investigator Zekeriya Oz was replaced last March following Şık and Nedim Şener's arrest (see past post). Is enough simply enough?

Now that the AKP has a firm grip on the military, Erdogan might well be less interested in purging current and former military officials who were once in opposition to the AKP's ascendancy. As Rusen Cakir writes, for all intents and purposes, the AKP now controls the military -- and, given the most recent bout of judicial reforms, perhaps the state. Rather than participating in the old status quo or joining "deep state" elements, the AKP has created its own status quo.

If, as some critics like Gareth Jenkins assert, the alliance between the Gulen movement and the AKP was a marriage of convenience, we might indeed be looking at a potential divorce, but not without more vying for power. Where President Gul and Bulent Arinc stand in all of this is still a bit of a mystery (Arinc is also thought to be quite sympathetic to Gulen, and both are rumored to be potential contenders for prime minister once Erdogan departs), but there is no doubt that the next year will be interesting for the party.