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.

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.

KCK Operations Continue As Negotiations Remain Halted

PHOTO from Radikal

Continued operations against the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), the political/civil society wing of the KCK established between 2005 and 2006, have resulted in the detention of 37 Kurdish nationalist activists, many from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

The raids took place on Friday, and involved searches of 123 locations, including the BDP-controlled municipal building in Diyarbakir, BDP headquarters in Istanbul, and the Diyarbakir offices of the Confederation of Trade Unions and Public Employees (KESK), as well as the Kurdish language-cultural organization Kurdi-Der, the Education and Science Workers' Union (Egitem-Sen), the Human Righs Association (IHD), as well as various other non-governmental organizations accused of being linked to the KCK. Provincial and district offices of the BDP across several provinces were also raided, in addition to, most controversially, parliamentarian Leyla Zana's Ankara home (for more on Zana, click here). For an account of the raids in English from Bianet, click here.

The BDP maintains a largely subservient relationship with the PKK, and in the past year, many of its members, with cresendoing fervor, have expressed support for the terrorist organization, including crediting the armed struggle for the progress that has been made in recent years on the minority/cultural rights front. Yet the party remains the only viable legal representative of the Kurdish nationalist movement. The KCK's establishment and activity since its founding has greatly blurred the boundaries between the BDP and the PKK, further confounding its relationship to the PKK and the independence of its members.

For their part, BDP politicians argue the government is determined to push them out of politics, and that the KCK operations are the principal means for doing this. Kurdish members of the AKP are somewhat divided on the issue of the operations. For example, AKP parliamentarian Galip Ensarioglu told Rudaw that while the operations against the KCK are sometimes inaccurate, members of the KCK should understand that "they will have to pay the consequences." Other Kurdish AKP parliamentarians -- for example, Zafer Ozdemir from Batman -- offer stronger support.

Ensarioglu, like other Kurdish parliamentarians from the AKP who tread a thin line, attempt to create distance between the ongoing operations and the government, arguing that the KCK operations are carried out by sometimes overzealous prosecutors and not the AKP. That said, it is highly unlikely that the operations would continue without the AKP-led government's consent, and indeed, government officials have openly spoken out on their status. Soon after Friday's operations, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said the operations will continue.

. . . .

PKK head Murat Karayilan confirmed from Kandil that he was in negotiations with the Turkish government for five years, and that for two to three years, the negotiations were direct. Karayilan has gone onto elaborate that the return of refugees from Makhmour and Kandil were the result of negotiations between Prime Minister Erdogan and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, and came at the proposal of Ocalan.

On Oct. 18, 2009, two groups consisting of eight guerrillas and 26 refugees returned through the Habur border crossing between Turkey and Iraq to be met by Kurdish nationalist politicians and waves of cheering nationalist Kurds shouting pro-PKK slogans. The appetite of the Turkish public for the Kurdish opening the government had announced the previous summer was soon lost amidst displays of what looked to be victory celebrations that were broadcast for days across Turkish television.

Negotiations soon after ceased, and reports indicate that they have not picked up sense. Tapes leaked of negotiations in Oslo were released this past August, and were not denied by the AKP government. Despite the revelations that both sides of the conflict were at one point holding negotiations, there is no indication from the various centers of power within the PKK nor the AKP government that they will pick up again anytime soon.

For another PKK account of the negotiations, click here for Muzaffer Ayata's interview with Rudaw. When negotiations stopped, PKK violence escalated, and in the past year, has included violence perpetrated against civilians, including bombings in civilian areas and the abduction of school teachers sent to serve in the southeast.

The Trouble with Leyla Zana

I stopped posting on this blog just over six months ago to focus on other projects with a post-election consideration of the BDP in the aftermath of last June's elections. Much to the chagrin of some of its followers and fellow Turkey observers, this post featured a photograph of Leyla Zana, a leading Kurdish activist representing the hardline segment of the "legal Kurdish nationalist movement" who had just been elected to parliament. It seems in some ways appropriate to pick up where I left off then, and this after six months of stirring political developments in the Turkish government's relationship with the BDP, the PKK, and the KCK, the political organization founded by the terrorist PKK between 2005 and 2006 and that has increasingly complicated the Kurdish political landscape, further blurring the boundaries between the BDP and the PKK.

In a recent interview with the Danish website Rudaw, which is supported by forces friendly to KRG president Massound Barzani, Zana declared that Kurds were no longer demanding simple autonomy, but rights to self-determination (for coverage in Hurriyet, click here). The troubles with Zana's claim are many, and not least is that "autonomy" is an instrument to actualizing rights a nation possesses to self-determination. In the interview, Zana says that a referendum ought to be held to let Kurds decide whether they want a federal system, an autonomy, or secession from Turkey. While many Kurds do understand themselves as belonging to a distinct nation, understood here as a unit exerting a demand to determine its own political future based on a common sense of belonging to a group, Zana is quite wrong to declare that somehow a territorially-based autonomy agreement or something else of the sort somehow falls short of recognizing Turkish Kurds' right to self-determination, which might be accommodated through any variety of scenarios.

First, I would like to say that there is nothing in my mind wrong with Kurdish nationalist politicians and activists articulating a right to self-determination and putting forward various political agendas to that affect. Though the Turkish state is far from ready to seriously discuss any such scenario and the AKP-led government unlikely to recognize a Kurdish right to self-determination and embrace a normal politics through which that right might be accommodate through minority rights-based policy solutions, Kurdish nationalism is a reality that will eventually have to be addressed. At the same time, Zana's understanding of how a right to self-determination might be asserted and thereby accommodated reveals a larger immaturity on the part of the Kurdish nationalist movement, and when accompanied by a significant number of Kurdish nationalists' unwillingness/inability to denounce violence, is greatly problematic and likely to lead simply to more violence. Here, it is also important to note that likely more than half of the Kurds in Turkey do not necessarily share such nationalist aspirations, and of those, far fewer, likely far less than 10 percent, support secession from Turkey. Kurdish Turks are more likely to look to Turkish cities in the West, in which about half of Turkey's Kurdish population now lives, than to cities in the north of Iraq. Kurds are tied to Turkey through politics, economy, culture, and family relations.

Further, the trouble with Leyla Zana is her dismissal of individual rights-based solutions to solve the conflict. While she acknowledges the government is attempting to solve the Kurdish question through providing for individual rights for Kurds (honestly, something that is still quite lacking), she dismisses these efforts as hopeless, declaring that Kurds "are not individuals but a nation." Just as assertive varieties of Turkish nationalism threaten individual rights and liberties, so does the predominant understanding of Kurdish nationalism that exists in most Kurdish nationalist circles. Ironically, Turks (including Turkish Kurds) have moved to embrace liberalism, as revealed by the rapid face of liberal reforms passed since Turkey began its EU accession process in 1999. Though the struggle for individual liberties is ongoing in Turkey and has suffered serious setbacks in recent years, from Zana's comments, one might conclude that liberalism (and with it, liberal nationalism) has a lot further to go in the predominantly Kurdish southeast than it does in the rest of Turkey.

In the past six months, the BDP's rhetoric has become increasingly militant and separatist, and to such a degree that it is difficult to recognize the party in comparison to the Democratic Society Party (DTP) that preceded it, and which was shut down in December 2009. The DTP, though far from liberal nationalist, was more reform-driven, more open to compromise, and in many ways, up against much greater odds than the current DTP. When the DTP was in power, the opposition CHP was dominated by assertive Turkish nationalists, and the AKP, though in some ways more accommodating than it is now after two summers of violent terrorist attacks and a failed liberalization initiative, much less able to fully tackle the problem. Now that the government has made significant headway in achieving civilian dominance over the army, a reasonable, responsible Kurdish nationalist party could in many ways accomplish a great deal, albeit with considerable resistance and back-peddling. Though the AKP government might in many ways be blamed for Kurdish nationalists' drift toward militarism and alienation, this in no way alleviates the BDP from responsibility, nor can the Turkish government be blamed for being reluctant to fairly deal with a political party that continues to endorse the utility of violence and align (perhaps even coordinate) itself with terrorist activity that has in recent months targeted civilians.

A solution to Turkey's Kurdish question is possible, but not without liberalism.

Detentions and Arrests Spike in the Southeast

Newroz demonstrations in Diyarbakir / PHOTO from Efe

The number of detentions and arrests in Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeast has drastically increased in the past month. The spike follows the BDP's "democratic solutions" campaign launched in March, as well as the mass unrest two weeks ago following the Election Board's attempt to bar some candidates from the pro-Kurdish BDP party from running in parliamentary elections. The number of people detained and arrested in conjunction with the government's ongoign operations against the KCK is also part of the equation. From Bianet:

A total of 2506 people were taken into police custody in Turkey between 24 March and 11 May 2011. Operations that resulted in the arrest of more than 400 people were carried out between the Newroz celebrations (end of March) and 1 May demonstrations.

According to the Dicle News Agency (DİHA), an estimated 2506 people were taken into police custody for political reasons in the course of police operations that started after the Newroz festivals and peaked with the veto decision of the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on 18 April. Hundreds of people were arrested. Only within the past five days, 155 people were taken into custody and 53 people were arrested.

According to data compiled by DİHA from the news the agency obtained, more than 2000 people were taken into custody between 24 March and 29 April, a period of six weeks. On 29 April, the last day of this wave of operations, at least 66 people were taken into custody in seven different cities.

According to figures announced by the Human Rights Association (İHD), 831 people, 189 of whom were children, were taken into police custody after the veto decision of the YSK between 19 and 29 April. The YSK had decided to bar twelve independent candidates from the general elections, a decision that was partly reversed later on. During the same period of time, two people were killed by the police and 308 people were injured during demonstrations.

* At least 177 people were taken into police custody in the scope of operations carried out between 29 April and 5 May.

* On Friday 6 May, 163 people were taken into police custody in Kurdish provinces and Hatay/Dörtyol, Bodrum and Adana, 19 of whom were arrested. On 7 May, another 24 arrests and an additional eleven people were registered.

* This rate increased further between 7 and 11 May. Throughout five days, 155 people were taken into custody and 53 were arrested. On 9 May, seven university students were arrested, among them one DİHA reporter. On 10 May, 34 people were taken into police custody, three of them are alleged members of the 'Group Comment' organization.

* Police operations were conducted in Hakkari, Mardin, Şırnak, Diyarbakır, Siirt, Van, Urfa, Söke, Erzurum and Malatya between 7 and 11 May.

Detentions and arrests are different in Turkey. Polce have the right to detain suspects for up to 24 hours, and a judge may extend this time to 48 hours, excluding the time it takes to transport detainees from different facilities. During this time, a detainee is entitled to the right to an attorney.

However, under the Anti-Terrorism Law, in cases where a suspect is thought to be linked to a terrorist organization no such right is afforded. In the southeast, this is the case in the vast majority of detentions. In most of these cases, detainees are not allowed to see an attorney until after the detention period is over, allowing police to freely interrogate people without an attorney "getting in the way." According to human rights groups, it is during this time that torture and other forms of ill-treatment is most likely to occur.

According to Serkan Akbas, a lawyer with the Diyarbakir Bar Association,  most detentions and arrests are based on photographs of people attending this or that event or meeting with people thought to be associated with the KCK or PKK. This has long been the case, though I assume the situation has gotten only worse. A mere photograph and a vendetta can land a person in serious trouble.

Detentions also routinely follow demonstrations and clashes with police, such as have been occurring in relation to the "peace tents" the BDP has setup in relation to the "democratic solutions" campaign.

Those arrested during protests can face more jail time than actual militants who decide to surrender. Under a limited amnesty law, militants receive a maximum of six year and three months in prison. Meanwhile, protestors can face between seven and 15 years in prison. For more on this, see Human Right Watch's November report on protesting as a criminal offense.

Further, arrests, even if based on the shoddiest of evidence, can land one in prison for months. According to the Minister of Justice, the average length of time between arrest and a trial verdict was 580 days. The problem of prolonged periods of arrest is indubitably a violation of the right to an expedient trial guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights. In the wake of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations, yhe practice has been criticized by the Turkish Bar Associations' Union. Bilgi Univeristy law professor Idil Elveris writes about the issue here.

Defense Lawyers Threaten to Boycott KCK Trial

DHA Photo from Radikal

Defense lawyers announced Monday that they will boycott the KCK trial currently ongoing in Diyarbakir unless the court allows defendants to use Kurdish when defending themselves in the courtroom. For background, click here. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Defense lawyers withdrew themselves at a Tuesday hearing from the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK, trial and gathered to discuss whether the action should be permanent or not.

The trial has been grid-locked many times over the suspects’ demand to give their defense in Kurdish despite the court’s consistent refusal.

The 21st hearing of the case started with suspect Songül Erol Abdil, the former mayor of Tunceli province, offering his defense in Zaza, which the court refused to hear, stating the statement was in “a language believed to be Kurdish.”

Abdil corrected the court, saying that the language was Zaza and offered the defense in writing. The court refused it once more, saying, “The suspect knows Turkish.” Defense lawyers said the action was illegal and that written statements must be translated and put into the case file.

After the same thing occurred with another suspect, the defense demanded that the statements be included in the case file in both Kurdish and Turkish, that the court make a decision of lack of jurisdiction and transfer the trial to the Constitutional Court and that all the arrested suspects be present at hearings.

The court tried to end the hearing after a recess without addressing the demands, leading about 100 defense lawyers to withdraw from the case, stating they cannot do their jobs.

UPDATE I (4/27) --The Diyarbakir hearing the KCK case has ruled that the Diyarbakir Bar Association will be asked to provide new representation to clients should the lawyers who have announced to boycott the trial not attend the next hearing. The Bar Association has said it will not do this. Hurriyet Daily News quotes Emin Aktar, a lawyer in the KCK case and current chairman of the Bar Association:

“The trial is already in a gridlock; six months have passed and not one defense has gone on record.” 

"It is meaningless for us to be there,” he added.
“The court will not even add defense in Kurdish to the [case] file, let alone allow it to be read,” he said, adding that according to the law, the defenses should be translated into Turkish and added to the case files.

“There are lots of wire-tapped conversations in Kurdish used as evidence against the suspects,” Aktar said. “You [the court] translated then and [added them to the file]. Then take those out too.”

The defense lawyers have also objected to the suspects being brought to trial in groups of six, rather than altogether, even though the courtroom is large enough to handle all of them and none of the suspects caused any disturbance or insulted the court when they were brought before it, Aktar said.

“It is against the universal concept of law. The indictment accuses them of being in an organization together, of being connected to each other somehow, so they should be tried together, but you will bring some of them to the hearings and not others,” he said. “You will start to read the evidence and those not present will not be able to answer the [claims] about them. And this would be called a trial.”

Moreover, Aktar said, the defense lawyers are unaware of which suspects will be brought to court beforehand and thus cannot prepare a defense. He called for the Justice Ministry to intervene to solve the problem or for the court to “give up on its stubbornness.”

It is highly unlikely that the Justice Ministry will intervene in the trial as doing so would constitute a major concession from the government and be perceived as a political victory for the BDP.

Kurdish Nationalism is Not Going Away

The backs of young men shouting slogans in support of Ocalan and the PKK at a festival organized by the Diyarbakir municipality. PHOTO by Ragan Updegraff

In the wake of the spate of violence sparked last week after the Elections Board (YSK) decided to bar 12 BDP candidates from running in June's parliamentary elections (the board decided on Thursday to reverse the decision), this Monday, as last, threatens more unrest as police acted to detain prominent BDP politicians.

Police detained 35 people Monday in the southeastern province of Hakkari, including the deputy mayor and other local officials, in connection with ongoing investigations into the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK.

The operations, reportedly carried out by police with special authority at city-center locations and at the “Democratic Solution Tent” set up by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, drew strong criticism from the party.

“This policy of the government is aimed at emptying out our party and [demoralizing] all those who love peace and democracy. This is psychological warfare,” said Mehmet Salih Yıldız, an independent candidate for Parliament supported by the BDP.

The 35 people who were detained in the operations include Hakkari Deputy Mayor Nurullah Çiftçi, Vice Mayor Hatice Demir, provincial council head Ferzınde Yılmaz, BDP provincial chairman Orhan Koparan, BDP central district chairman Kenan Kaya, the area “muhtar” (headman) and members of the provincial council and the municipality.

The suspects will be transferred to court after being questioned by the Hakkari police, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The recent operations in Hakkari are sinfificant in that they include top officials in the BDP-governed municipality, which is one of the most fervent BDP strongholds in the country. Since local elections in March 2009 in which the BDP captured large majorities in several southeastern provinces, the party has worked hard to govern these municipalities as relatively sovereign from Ankara. The party has focused on providing municipal services and using the municipality in novel ways to further its political agenda, including organizing political fora, such as the "democratic solution" tent in Hakkari, that challenge the AKP's approach to dealing with the problem.

And what is that approach? For many Kurds, more important than the "Kurdish opening" is what they see as the ruling party's attempts to suppress Kurdish political organization that challenges the AKP agenda. Though the "Kurdish opening," which was soon changed to a "democratic opening" and then to a project to promote "national unity and brotherhood," promised to offer solutions to long-existing problems, particularly in the area of cultural and minority rights, the opening gained little momentum and was largely dead by October. (For a history of the opening up to May of last year, click here.) After a very violent summer, there is little hope for the opening in the region and the AKP is facing record lows in terms of its popularity in provinces like Hakkari and Sirnak.

Monday's detentions will only further stoke nationalist sentiments and resentment against the AKP among Kurds already inclined to support the BDP. Combined with the complete and utter mess that defines the trials of alleged "KCK members" currently ongoing in Diyarbakir and Van, relations between Turks and Kurds will get worse before they get better. The BDP stands to gain votes as a result of the increased tensions, and in my analysis, the AKP is misguided if it thinks it can seriously "remove" (a nasty word) the Kurdish political actors it deems more unsavory.

Some leading AKP figures have attempted in the past year to distinguish between "bad Kurds" and "good Kurds," the main criterion for the separation between the two being the latter's support of the government. If the AKP thinks this a waiting game, that these players, attitudes, and demands will just go away with enough repression, it is sorely mistaken. As former Turkish security officials and long-time observers of the Kurdish question can testify, such an approach has been taken before, it has failed before, and it will fail again.

Hence, we have former Turkish officials like retired MIT deputy director Cevat Ones calling for  a serious reconsideration of the problem, a re-working of Turkish nationalism and the constitutional foundations of the Turkish state that accommodates the self-determination demands of nationalist-minded Kurds. Ones's words seem to be falling on deaf ears, but the problem is not going away. (See Nese Duzel's column in Taraf (in Turkish) for more on Ones.)

More KCK Detentions, More Unrest

A street theater group puts on a show in protest of the ongoing KCK trial in front of the Diyarbakir Greater Municipality Building and within view of the courthouse. DHA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

Police detained six alleged members of the KCK, the PKK's so-called urban wing, in Van yesterday as the KCK trial continued with a bit of street theater in front of the courthouse. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Police simultaneously raided various addresses in the Erciş district of eastern Van province and detained six including Ramazan Alver, Erciş branch head of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP.

. . . .

The lawyers of KCK defendants asked for the recusal of the judges hearing the case during Tuesday’s hearing in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır at the 6th Court of Serious Crimes. A group of people protested the hearing through a theatrical play held in front of the municipality building, located nearby the courthouse.

The KCK case has 152 suspects on trial, of which 104 are under arrest and 19 are on the run. The arrested suspects include 12 elected mayors from the BDP.

The case is in a deadlock because the suspects have demanded to give testimony in Kurdish since the first hearing but have been prevented from doing so by the court.

BDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş had stated the suspects would not attend the hearing Tuesday, which raised tension. Meanwhile, the 23 female suspects under arrest resisted being transferred to the courthouse but were later persuaded to do so.

The request for the recusal of the judges will be heard by the 4th Court of Serious Crimes of Diyarbakır.

The recusal request raises the ante a bit while the BDP continues to score political points. Why does someone not just blink already? The BDP has everything to gain from the current stalemate. Meanwhile, the court's recalcitrance and the Turkish government's absolute silence on the subject is only aggravating concerns. Perhaps a draft proposal creating the right to defend oneself in one's native language. Too much to hope for I know, but still . . .

More Chaos at the KCK Trial

DHA Photo

More chaos ensued under the auspices of the KCK trial in Diyarbakir yesterday when defendants, still not granted permission to defend themselves in Kurdish, continued in their efforts to speak Kurdish in the courtroom. No doubt their microphones were silenced by judges, and their remarks recorded as "incomprehensible," as has been the case in past hearings.

Neither side is blinking on the issue: the court stubbornly refuses to allow the 151 defendants on trial to defend themselves in Kurdish despite the fact that there is precedent for such while the defendants and the BDP are using the issue to raise their own profile and ignite protests across the country. From Hurriyet Daily News:

During the afternoon session, the court said the hearing would continue without defendants in the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK, case because they reportedly destroyed the discipline in the hall during the morning protest.

Ahead of the afternoon session, the defendants had said they would not attend the second hearing unless they were forced to do so by the gendarmerie, in which case they said they would refuse to sit in court, the pro-Kurdish Fırat news agency reported.

Once in court, the defendants’ lawyers said they did not want to make a defense without their clients, leading them to begin walking out. After the action was greeted by applause from the gallery, the court ordered everyone out and postponed the case until Feb. 1.

More than 100 defendants were standing trial once more for the case, which is investigating the alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The defendants include 96 people under arrest well as seven without arrest. A total of 153 people are implicated in the case, including the mayors and local politicians of several southeastern Anatolian provinces. Prominent Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir is on trial but is not under arrest.

After the court rejected the defendants’ request to speak in Kurdish during the morning session, the suspects demanded to leave the hall but were prevented from doing so by gendarmerie officers, Doğan news agency reported. The defendants, together with members of the gallery, consequently gave derisive applause for five minutes, leading the court to adjourn for a recess.

Nejdet Atalay, the mayor of Batman, spoke in Turkish in the court, saying: “This trial will take its place in history as a dishonorable example of democracy. What is being judged here is Kurds, the representatives of Kurds and the Kurdish issue.”

See past posts for more background.

In another court case, a Diyarbakir court has issued a bizarrely inhumane ruling denying compensation to a Kurdish family whose son was run over by a police vehicle. According to the decision of the court, "The sadness of the death of a [younger] person for his mother and father will not be the same as the sadness of the death of someone who came to a [greater] social status and age.” See Jenny White's comments at Kamil Pasha for more detail.

Still No Blinking on Kurdish Language Defense

AFP Photo

The KCK trial continued Friday with neither side blinking on the defense in Kurdish issue. The court continued to turn off microphones as defendants attempted to speak in Kurdish, and the defendants refused to acquiesce in their demands. Some of the 151 defendants on trial argue they are better able to defend themselves in their mother tongue, though of course the issue, thanks also to the court's recalcitrance, is also being used as political fodder for Kurdish nationalists. In the end, the court decided to postpone the trial until Tuesday.

Meanwhile, protests in Diyarbakir and Istanbul got underway. In Diyarbakir, police blocked access to routes leading to the courtroom in Yenisehir, which lays just outside the city's historic walls that gave refuge to the many Kurds fleeing from the death and destruction that defined the 1990s. In Istanbul, an estimated 200 young people initiated clashes with police following a peaceful demonstration of 2,000 plus people on Istiklal Cadessi. The 200 young are no doubt among the city's thousands of impoverished Kurds that have immigrated into the city, live just off of Istiklal Caddessi, and are easily manipulated by forces who seek violent solution and seek to provoke.

According to Milliyet journalist Namik Duran, similar cases have allowed the use of Kurdish. Given the stakes here and the consequences for violence, why be so stubborn?


UPDATE I (1/18) -- Still no blinking as the trial continues. BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas announced that 1,000 families have announced their intention to join his party and that some of their children "to the mountain" (a metaphor for joining the PKK) as a result of the Kurdish language defense issue.

And the Unrest Comes . . .

From Hurriyet Daily News:

When Bayram Altun, deputy head of the shuttered pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, began to read a defense statement in Kurdish, the head judge had his microphone turned off. “The defendant is making his defense in an unknown language,” he reportedly said.

Following this eruption, defendant Ramazan Morkoç also reportedly addressed the court in Kurdish, and then in Turkish. “You cannot insult the language of a people,” he said. The head judge moved to expel Morkoç from the courtroom, sparking protests from the other defendants who asked to be expelled from courtroom collectively.

When the judge decided to remove all the defendants from the courtroom the defense lawyers objected. Lawyer Tahir Elçi said the suspects’ request to defend themselves in Kurdish is not a political request but a legal request. Elçi said calling Kurdish an “unknown language” would have heavy political consequences.

See Oct. 21 post. This will only get bigger . . .

KCK Defendants Request Defense in Kurdish

DHA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

The KCK trial against 151 suspect that got underway October 10 continued yesterday with Kurdish defendants asking for the right to defend themselves in Kurdish. The official national language in Turkey is Turkish, and courtroom procedures do not commonly allow defense in other languages. From Hurriyet Daily News:

The court, which has denied the defendants’ request to offer their defense in Kurdish, has also denied a demand the indictment not be read because it would take too long and prolong the period under which the accused would remain detained. The prosecution continued to read the approximately 900 page summary of the 7,578 page indictment.

Including supplement dossiers the indictment is over 130,000 pages long.

Defense lawyers stated police officers running the investigation into their clients were in the room and objected to the court, saying their presence would affect the fairness of the trial.

The Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples, or MAZLUM-DER, announced they would file a criminal complaint against the court on the grounds that it has denied the suspects the right to offer a defense in their mother tongue.

There is obviously a political note the defendants are sounding by requesting they be allowed to defend themselves in Kurdish, but once again, denying the right only stokes tensions further with little gain for the peace process.

A Very Unquiet Week on the Kurdish Front

Had last week's news not been dominated by Israel's raid on the flotilla, Turkish eyes would be more squarely turned on the rising tide of violence in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. The same day of the flotilla attack, a PKK attack on a naval base in Iskenderun (Hatay) left six Turkish soldiers dead. It was the first attack on a Turkish naval base in the history of the Turkish Republic, and a sign that the PKK is intent on expanding the conflict.

A few days later, BDP deputy Emine Ayna, largely regarded as a hawk within the BDP, held a rally in Diyarbakir in which she warned of an expanded war that would affect all of Turkey. Ayna rhetorically asked an absent Prime Minister Erdogan if this what the government wanted while repeating calls for the government to make radical reforms and engage Ocalan. Meanwhile, clashes between the PKK and Turkish military/police continued throughout the week, as did continued operations against operations against alleged members of the Democratic Confederation of Kurdistan (KCK).

Imprisoned on an island in the Marmara Sea, Ocalan has said through his lawyers that he is no longer supportive of negotiations with the Turkish government. The move is no doubt meant to presure the government to pay attention to the former PKK leader, who still plays the dominant role within the organization. The BDP has said that it will try to convince Ocalan not to give up efforts to engage the Turkish state, calling on both parties to engage in negotiations while organizing a number of rallies across the southeast at which Kurds sympathetic to Ocalan and the PKK will call on the leader to remain engaged.

The question of engaging Ocalan and the PKK in direct negotiations aside, this maneuvering is somewhat like a dance in which Ocalan threatens to disappear, and then the BDP acts to raise is profile, holding demonstrations to show his support among a significant sector of the Kurdish community. The BDP has said that if Ocalan disappears from the process, PKK violence wll increase (hence, Ayna's remarks).

Having made two weeklong trips to Diyarbakir in the past month to hear voices in the region, the trend is particularly disturbing given the context of the very polarized discourse at the moment. BDP supporters, and even Kurds outside both the BDP and the AKP, are increasingly troubled by the ongoing operations against accused members of the KCK, often described as the "urban wing" of the PKK. On the other hand, PKK violence has drastically increased in recent weeks, a turn that will only frustrate prospects for peace and the success of the government's Kurdish initiative should it resume. The victim of this polarization will be the dialogue and moderation needed to bring an end to the conflict.

The KCK Operations

Today the Diyarbakir Public Prosecutor's Office finally issued an indictment for some of the alleged KCK members currently being detained. There number is at least 1,500, and they stretch across a wide variety of sectors in Kurdish society and include 11 BDP mayors. The indictment comes more than one year after the operations began last April. Prosecutors are asking 15 years to life for those named in the indictment for having "membership in the PKK."

Meanwhile, the operations continued last week with six arrests in Van on Tuesday and another seven on Friday. 120 more were detained two weeks ago (see May 23 post), and more the week after.

For many Kurds, the operations are being used as a witchhunt to silent voices who are critical of the government. While many acknowledged the AKP government made an important step in recognizing the Kurdish problem and admitting to past state abuses, few were optimistic about the initiative, which has so far failed to deliver the kind of wide-reaching reform some thought initially possible.

With the AKP government increasingly less interested in the initiative, re-coining it one of many "democratic initiatives" rather than the great "opening" it was early billed as, many Kurdish activists are becoming increasingly frustrated. It is hard to judge the extent to which support for the BDP has grown, but it is safe enough to say that the AKP government's influence in the region is waning.

Just as importantly, the government seems less inclined to listen to the voices of Kurdish civil society actors who are outside the BDP or only loosely linked. The web of networks in the southeast is ambiguous and wide, but without talking to all parties involved and making an effort to engage Kurdish civil society actors, there is little chance at ending the polarization.

Many of these actors are not necessarily close to the BDP, but are strongly critical of the state and the AKP government. Too often dismissed and their legitimacy discounted, the government is overlooking the potential they have to transform the conflict insofar as they are able to exert pressure over the BDP and more leftist/radical Kurds, especially in more leftist/radical centers like Diyarbakir and the far southeast.

Indeed, failure to adequately take into account voices from Kurdish civil society is one of the principal reasons why the government's initative has failed. For a timeline of the Kurdish initiative, click here.

The Security Situation

As the security situation in the southeast diminishes, especially in Hakkari and Sirnak provinces near the border, the Turkish government called a security summit, held on Wednesday just two days after the attack in Iskenderun. At the summit, Interior Minister Besir Atalay expressed the government's commitment to the political and economic solutions laid out in the announcement of the Kurdish opening last summer, but again, failed to give any specifics.

It is precisely this lack of specifics and concrete action, on top of the ongoing KCK operations, that Kurdish civil society leaders (again, both in and outside of the BDP) bring up in discussing relations between the Turkish government and the region. State officials announced that the government would continue to guard against future attacks, taking increased precautions and learning from past mistakes in order to minimize Turkish military casualties.

In addition to the attack in Iskenderun, three Turkish soldiers were injured on Tuesday in Cukurca (Hakkari). On Thursday, an attack on an armed police vehicle in the same area injured three Turkish police officers, and the local police department and police housing facilities fell under attack the same night. Another two police officers were injured in another attack there on Friday.

Also on Tuesday, six PKK members surrendered at the Habur Gate in Silopi province, and another in Adiyaman province, though I have yet to find details or any particular significance to the surrenders. In the past two months, PKK fire has killed 28 Turkish soldiers.

Though violence has been increasing for some time now, the PKK also used last week to declare an official end to its unilateral ceasefire, first declared last year though violence has been intermittent.

Barzani Visit

Other news on the Kurdish front involved the visit of Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani. The KRG leader's first visit to Ankara in six years, the visit was largely overshadowed by events in Gaza.

Trade between Turkey and the KRG has been increasing, and Ankara has made serious efforts in the past two years to gain the support of Barzani in quelling the PKK. Barzani, in return, has taken a harder liner against the PKK, calling last year for the organization to end its "terrorist" campaign. He repeated those calls in Ankara, as well as offered praise of the government's attempts to find a political solution through the Kurdish opening.

After meeting with Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Barzani also discussed problems in the region with BDP leaders, including BDP Chairman Selahattin Demirtas, Ahmet Turk and Bengi Yilmaz.

Some analysts speculate that the most effective way of transforming Turkey's Kurdish conflict is by more closely using Barzani's political capital in the region. In this vein, U.S.-based analyst Henri Barkey has a new report endorsing this approach.