Washington Kurdish Institute
August 13, 2018
Part IV of a series on Turkey’s future
Introduction:
Institutions are the pillars of society, holding up various interdependent elements within a unified system. When these pillars are eroded and destroyed, society collapses along with it. A lack of faith in the institutions which bind together a state will ultimately undermine the very core of the state itself, placing it in a precarious position. When political, judicial, and social institutions are corrupted by cronyism, sectarianism, and petty politicization, the results can be disastrous. In modern Turkey, the institutional pillars – the inbuilt checks and balances of the state – are all but gone. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sabotaged and subverted these mechanisms and all obstacles to consolidating his own personal power throughout the course of his extended tenure in office. In an attempt to situate himself at the center of the Turkish socio-political sphere, Erdogan has declared a veritable holy war on the media, academia, minority groups, and any political opponents who dare to say otherwise. Under the guise of combating terrorism and corruption, Erdogan has sought to dispose of all those who may aspire to see him hold left with anything short of supreme authority. The catastrophe Erdogan is creating for the people of Turkey demonstrates the dangers of strongman politics.
Judiciary:
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the newly born Turkey of Kemal Ataturk was founded in 1923 largely on principles and provisions adopted from European nation-states. It was, from its foundation, envisaged as a Turkish ethnic nation-state, despite the presence of the Kurdish people and other indigenous groups living within the new country’s borders. The first major legal reforms were instituted in 1926, drawing from the Swiss Civil Code, the French Legal Code, and the Italian Penal Code. There have been frequent changes to the law of land, most notably the adoption of the Turkey’s Constitution of 1982, following the 1980 Turkish coup d’état, the third coup in the history of the republic. The Constitution of 1982, which remains in effect to this day, affirmed the independence of the courts as well as the rights of the accused.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in the 2002 Turkish elections, in which they swept the parliamentary elections riding a wave of discontent fueled by the perceived government failure to handle the 2001 financial crisis which shook Turkey. There was initially optimism that Erdogan’s more open position on religion, based on his own very public religious fervor, would liberalize Turkey’s rigidly secular code of law. However, Erdogan’s focus on reducing repression of religious expression in society did not translate to a desire to let others whose world views clashed with Erdogan’s also enjoy freedom of expression. As Erdogan increased his hold on Turkey’s government, and then ascended to the presidency, he drifted towards authoritarianism, and began to exercise greater personal control over the judicial system. Disputes between the judiciary and Erdogan’s government boiled over in 2013 with a major corruption scandal involving the sons of at least three cabinet ministers. Prosecutors alleged that the ministers’ sons had been involved in a gas-for-gold scandal using state owned enterprises and their resources. The issue became inexorably linked to Erdogan as the three cabinet ministers resigned abruptly in the wake of the scandal. Erdogan denounced the arrests and the entire investigation as a foreign plot enabled by the followers of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who held positions in the police and judicial system. The result was the reassignment of over 100 judges and prosecutors nationwide, bringing the corruption probe to a grinding halt. This confrontation would foreshadow Erdogan’s heavy handed policy towards the judiciary, and set a precedent for political manipulation in the legal system. In 2016, after a failed coup attempt, which President Erdogan once again labelled a Gulenist plot, the state cracked down heavily on any and all elements of opposition in the government and society – including those who unambiguously condemned the coup even prior to its failure, such as the country’s leading Kurdish politicians. This campaign by Erdogan included a two year purge of over 4,000 prosecutors and judges, resulting in 1 in 4 Turkish judicial officials being dismissed or arrested. This decision effectively sterilized the judiciary, leaving it in the full control of Erdogan and his AKP. The arrest of judges led to widespread condemnation and public protests by disaffected citizens. Following the 2017 constitutional referendum of questionable legitimacy in which Erdogan won sweeping new powers as executive president, major changes were also affected on an already undermined court system. The government reshuffled 3,320 judges and legal staffers and reformed the Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK). Under the new constitution, the HSK’s membership was reduced from 22 to 13, while presidentially appointed members were only reduced from 4 to 3, allowing the president to exert far more effective control over the board which manages the many prosecutors of Turkey while simultaneously handling the disciplinary measures of the courts. The vicious purges and confounding shuffles of the judiciary in Turkey have led to a serious lack of qualified judges and prosecutors so much so that new regulations even allow for administrative judges to be confirmed without an undergraduate legal degree.
In the long run, this erosion of one of the most fundamental parts of the state system can only have negative outcomes for Turkey. The politicization of legal proceedings virtually guarantees unfair rulings, and a necessary bias towards supporters of the AKP and President Erdogan. A judicial system devoid of just rulings can hardly be called justice at all. Erdogan’s voracious desire for a presence in all elements of government and state undermines the entire notion of Turkish democracy, and an unfair legal system is a vital part of the success of his takeover. If judicial officials are able to challenge the legality and constitutionality of the president’s measures, then there is a conceivable chance that he would be forced to limit his ruthless expansion of power. To preempt this challenge, Erdogan has taken multiple steps over the course of his time in leadership to essentially enervate the checks established to prevent such a takeover from occurring. These steps were once limited to confronting and harassing the judiciary, but more recently the stain of criminality has been enshrined as a constitutional element of Turkish society. This strengthens Erdogan’s position, and, in a longer-term sense, paves the wave for future tyrants and strongmen to dominate the political sphere. Without the necessary checks, there is less and less to prevent the future rise and present continuation of the march toward authoritarianism. Erdogan has been emboldened by his apparent success in centralizing his own power, and is now seemingly willing to take greater risks for greater rewards. This was clear during the post-coup crackdowns as well as the 2017 referendum, and will undoubtedly continue to become evident as Erdogan’s hold on the judiciary and its members becomes increasingly solidified.
Political Parties:
Turkey’s history surrounding political expression has been rocky at best, and the nation has a history of military coups during time of political upheaval. Perhaps at no time was this more evident than the late 1970’s, in which far-left and far-right elements clashed across Turkey, with thousands being killed between 1976 and 1980. Street fights and attacks occurred daily between supporters of the Turkish communist party along with similar left-wing Marxist-Leninist groups and the right-wing ultranationalist Grey Wolves, the armed wing of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Many Kurdish groups, predominantly left-wing in political orientation, participated in these struggles to achieve independence or cultural rights for their people from Turkey, a prospect which terrified many on both sides of the Turkish political spectrum – who, then and now, are unaccepting of expressions of any degree of Kurdish self-determination, even outside of Turkey’s own current borders. In 1980, political gridlock and economic disasters engendered a political crisis which saw the military step in, and effectively dissolve the democratic government with the ostensible goal of ending the ongoing infighting. After three years of military rule, civilian rule, albeit with strong military oversight, was re-established and elections were held, however, the message was clear, the ruling elements in the military would not tolerate certain brands of politics.
The role of the military vis-à-vis the government has weakened since the 1980’s, though, then as now, right wing nationalist elements play a significant role in the affairs of the state. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has historically cooperated and even entered into a formal coalition with the MHP, despite their continued perpetuation of the Grey Wolf street gangs. Indeed, the AKP has adopted increasingly nationalist rhetoric, and seems to have attracted many voters who traditionally supported the MHP. The president has even encouraged his party to ally with the extreme Turkish nationalist parties in upcoming 2019 elections to ensure control of the executive branch. On the other hand, the Turkish state has only expanded its crackdown on left-wing, moderate, and minority dissident and opposition elements since Erdogan’s ascension to power. In 2009, the Turkish constitutional court banned the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the only Kurdish party to sit in the national assembly for alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which demands greater rights for the Kurds of Turkey and initiated a campaign of armed resistance against the Turkish state in 1984, and alleged that the DTP was spreading ‘terrorist propaganda’. Connection, sympathy, and even tolerance towards the PKK and its supporters have often been used as an umbrella accusations against pro-Kurdish groups in Turkey, from political parties to cultural and educational institutions, as a justification to delegitimize and eliminate them. In response to the pressures of the Turkish state, many disparate repressed elements of Turkish political life joined together in October 2011 to establish the People’s Democratic Congress (HDK) in October of 2011. The Congress was a forum for many minor socialist, pro-Kurdish, environmentalist, LGBT, and union groups to pool their resources and efforts to affect national policymaking, including earning sizable representation in Turkey’s parliament, which required that a list’s votes exceed a 10% electoral threshold, one of the highest in any parliamentary system, to win representation and be allocated seats in the national assembly. The HDK platform anointed the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) as its political wing approximately a year later, and in general elections since, the group has performed well, exceeding the 10% threshold in the three most recent general elections. This success becomes even more impressive when one considers the broad state repression the party and its constituents have faced. Since the failed coup in 2016, the Turkish government has sought to remove all elements of dissent, peaceful or not. The HDP and its supporters have endured waves of detentions, arrests and intimidation. The party has been refused access to resources such as state television, and, over the past few years, violence and even open warfare has taken place in Kurdish areas of the country, with Turkey using the full might of its modern army against its citizenry. In the run up to the 2018 Turkish elections, the state turned a blind eye to right-wing extremist violence and actively harassed and imprisoned opposition leaders and supporters. In a statement made by Gauri van Gulik, the director of Amnesty International Europe, Erdogan’s government was slammed for “creating a suffocating climate of fear” in the country, as many felt intimidated and unable to freely express themselves politically. The repressive environment was further demonstrated by the imprisonment of the then Co-chairman of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtas in 2016, on charges of terrorism for having presided over the party and criticized Erdogan during a period of when the Kurdish people of Kobani in northern Syria were defending themselves against a siege by the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group, as Turkish forces watched idly. Demirtas would later become the 2018 HDP presidential candidate, campaigning from a prison cell, yet still receiving 8.4% of the popular vote.
The political institutions and parties and opposition parties of Turkey have been some of the foremost targets of Erdogan’s crackdown, a fact that should raise red flags to any observer. The deliberate and visible attempt to undermine the equality of the political playing field indicates a clear desire for the unchallenged dominance of not only the AKP, but of the president’s personal power over society. Erdogan has slowly, over the course of the past decade and a half, expanded his influence across Turkey through the clear subversion of democratic structures. Those, such as the HDP, who actively criticize government policy and peacefully demonstrate to achieve their ends, are viewed as threats to the regime. This is not the condition of a democratic state. Political opposition is a check on governmental overreach and abuse. Political challenges are vital parts of a democracy, ensuring that the voices of even the marginalized can be heard and considered. When avenues for peaceful and lawful expression are denied and obstructed, societal pressure builds, intensifying in volatility as time goes on. The current Turkish state under Erdogan is creating problems it will eventually not be able to resolve with force. Force, unfortunately, is the trademark of Erdogan’s policy towards dissent – one way in which he is entirely consistent with past rulers of the country. As citizens, especially those minority groups such as Kurds, see their options for expression increasingly limited, more radical measures will seem necessary. When one is unable to make his or her voice heard peacefully and within a democratic framework, and begins to view their state not as a societal unit of which they constitute, but as an oppressing force, a wider array of methods to enact change seems enticing. If Turkey’s government continues its radical crackdown on even moderate opposition, it will see more citizens – or at least those unable to emigrate – opting for militancy and subversion, rather than peaceful dissention. The irony is that, in Erdogan’s aggressive campaign to stamp out opposition, he will breed more challenges to his authority, to which he will most likely respond aggressively, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle. Furthermore, if Erdogan continues shows that he is unwilling to engage in negotiation and reform peacefully, then the only logical course of action for militant groups and adversarial elements is to attempt to bring down the president and the system he has hijacked and shaped to reinforce one man rule. If Erdogan were, however, to show that he is capable of seeking political solutions negotiated from a position of power, he may stave off more intense challenges. In cracking down on political opposition, Erdogan has opened a Pandora’s box he will not be capable of closing. The resultant chaos will be at the expense of not only the government and the militants, but of all of the people of Turkey.
The Academy:
The purge of academia is part of the long-term plan to raise a generation of Turkish citizens with blind devotion to Erdogan’s world vision and do not question authority. Schools and universities are the battlegrounds on which Turkey’s ideological future depends. Since the coup, 6,021 academics have lost their jobs. Some have been arrested, others fled the country, and many remain in Turkey, banned from working and struggling to feed their families. Those teachers who could return to their classrooms in September 2016 following the failed coup, found 2,250 educational institutions closed and more than half their textbooks gone. Those books that remained were expurgated of ‘terrorist’ content.
Fifteen entire universities and a thousand schools have been shut down, their current students lost as to what to do. University graduates may find their degree no longer counts, their diplomas canceled, and their future prospects, along with those of the professors who taught them, grim.
The academics arrested under terrorism charges began with Gulenists and Kurds (or academics who signed a petition calling for peace with the Kurds) but spread to liberals and leftists in general, including some of the most prominent and respected scholars in Turkey. The purge of academics to instill a new order is not an uncommon occurrence following a coup, but this coup failed. Even so, the number of scholars to have lost their jobs following this failed coup is 25 times greater than the number of those sacked after all other military coups in Turkey’s history… combined.
The fear is that academic standards will erode to further the promotion of nationalistic propaganda, as it did in the 1930s. For example, the “Sun Language Theory” was a pseudoscientific linguistic hypothesis developed during the early days of the Republic of Turkey’s establishment at the direction of Ataturk that claimed that all languages on earth descended from one original Turkic language. Scholars who are not arrested or barred from teaching might, if possible, leave anyway to teach in places with higher academic standards, greater prestige, and guaranteed academic freedom.
This risk of brain drain (i.e. the emigration of intelligent people from a country) is acute. Not only will this forced brain-drain mean the loss of innovation and education services, but the experts who have been forced out will be replaced by those without the know-how to make the change, and cannot pass that knowledge on.
As mentioned previously in this series, even before the coup, the government was attempting to change the educational system, creating more religious schools and closing mainstream ones, and is now creating a new curriculum which removes evolution and much of the discussion of modern Turkey’s founding figures. According to the Ministry of Education, the new curriculum will be “from the perspective of a national and moral education.”
For Turkey, this means the next generation in will grow up being taught in schools how to act, rather than how to think.
Journalism:
Turkey jails more journalists than any other nation. In fact, as of 2016, they held a third of the entire imprisoned journalist population. Arresting reporters is not a new tactic for Turkey, but Erdogan’s zeal for doing so is unsurpassed in Turkey’s history. There are a number of laws, new and old, that Erdogan and his enforcers use to arrest voices that are critical of him and his government, or present a challenge to the founding principles of Turkey just by existing, as with any Kurd speaking his or her own tongue in public. But for journalists, the punishment is more severe because the penalties for crimes like ‘propaganda’ increase if it is broadcasted or published online. The ability for the media to influence minds is, perhaps, treading on what the government sees as its own purview, which is why 189 media outlets have been shut down.
Laws like incitement to hate, terrorist propaganda and membership, espionage and revealing state secrets, and defamation of the Turkish President and public servants, are so broadly defined as to allow Erdogan and his ruling AK Party legal recourse to arrest anyone in opposition to them. Indeed, Erdogan expanded the definition of terrorist to include ‘supporters,’ equally loosely defined. The main targets for these arrests are, of course, Kurds, academics, liberals, journalists, and Gulenists.
In the crackdown following the coup, pro-Kurdish TV channels were fined for coverage that was critical or simply did not agree with the government, or they were removed from Turkey’s main satellite provider. The government then shut down 23 pro-Kurdish TV and radio stations under an emergency decree that allows closing media outlets that ‘entertain links to a terrorist organization’ or is a ‘threat to national security.’ This included a children’s TV channel, which broadcast children’s cartoons dubbed in Kurdish.
There were 2,000 cases of “insulting” Erdogan in the first two years of his presidency starting in 2014, and hundreds of those were against journalists. While defamation has long been part of Turkey’s criminal code, there has been a tenfold increase in defamation lawsuits since Erdogan. Examples of such lawsuits against journalists include a January 2016 article by Hasan Cemal on Erdogan violating the constitution, a September 2015 article by Murat Belge suggesting that Erdogan started up the conflict with the PKK for votes, and the case of Ayhan Karahan, who was arrested for speaking out against the jailing of several HDP politicians.
Other journalists have been charged with the more serious crime of espionage or revealing state secrets as a consequence of legitimate reporting on issues important to the public. Can Dundar, famous journalist and former editor of Cumhiriyet was arrested to reporting the Turkish National Intelligence Agency sending arms to Syrian rebels.
The list of the hundreds of journalists detained or arrested for defamation or terrorism go on and on, and detaining them will get easier. On July 25, 2018, Turkey’s parliament passed a new law that gives authorities even more power in the detaining of suspects and imposing public order, essentially incorporating measures of emergency rule (which officially ended July 19th, 2018) into law.
A great proportion of journalists, on top of legal action, also face threats, intimidation, and violence from the state, especially if they were reporting in the Kurdish region or on the Kurdish issue in general. Women journalists are particularly at risk, according to Human Rights Watch, and journalists have been attacked in the streets.
Even entire news organizations have been targeted. For example, Hurriyet was condemned for being critical of the government and for giving airtime to opposition voices, including the HDP. Erdogan and the AKP took to twitter encouraging loyalists to protest in front of the Hurriyet building. Protesters arrived soon after and attacked the building.
The vilification of journalists in a time of impunity in violence against them, and where courts are slow or unresponsive gags reporters from covering issues of utmost importance, causes journalistic ‘black-outs’ in regions that most need coverage. This allows the Turkish government to act, unchecked, and continues putting pressure on media in terms of their content and their staff. Many journalists who have not been purged by the government decree are fired by their bosses because of government pressure, and others are almost certainly practicing self-censorship to avoid putting their livelihoods or even personal safety at risk
Erdogan, with his personal statements, has also created a climate of mistrust and suspicion of people who think and write for a living. “There is no difference between a terrorist holding a gun or a bomb and those who use their work and pens to support terrorism. The fact that an individual could be a deputy, an academic, an author, a journalist, or the director of an NGO does not change the fact that that person is a terrorist.”
Conclusion:
Turkey has no freedom of speech, except the freedom to agree with the president. When open dialogue in the media, in academia, in the judiciary, and in politics is suffocated, democratic institutions wither. When those voices are gone, NGOs may document when rights are being denied, but only if they themselves have not been arrested or shuttered as a consequence of terrorism charges. Once arrested, these thinkers, dissenters, justice-supporters, and minorities cannot expect any semblance of fair trial. While Kurds are accustomed to this treatment, the rest of Turkey’s citizens are learning to contend with this new reality.
In his fear of rebellion, Erdogan has changed the very core of Tukey’s institutions –the laws, school curricula and even the media and political landscape– to create a country where no one will challenge or question his governance. But in removing all civil avenues of opposition, he is himself laying the groundwork for the very thing he is fighting so hard to avoid.