My dear non-Turkish friends, Today, on August 5th, 2013; Turkey witnessed one of the darkest moments in its history and I feel obliged to share this with you. 5 years ago, a case against some of the intellectuals, journalists, professors and members of the Turkish Armed Forces was initiated by the ruling party’s puppets within the judiciary system. This case’s target was the people who might have been involved in a coup d’état to overthrow the democratically elected Islamist government. Granted; initially people with this aspiration and even plans were involved in the case; it quickly became a witch hunt for all the free-thinking and somewhat powerful figures from all fractions who were against the Islamist government lead by a man who once claimed that democracy was only a vehicle for them to reach their target; a Sharia-run state. Due to the short memory of our people and maybe due to ignorance or fear from the government, people failed to see that it was utterly impossible for all these men & women to get together for such a detailed and complex goal as coup d’etat. The reasoning was that the fractions that these people belonged; socialists, Communists, liberals, soldiers, and clandestine officers made it impossible for them to get together. The only common thing these people have is that they are free and secular Kemalists (in their own way) who are against this authoritarian and Islamist government. Over the 5 years; some of the “suspects” have died of various illnesses and grief. There have never been any substantial evidence against them and science has proved that some of the so-called evidence were manufactured by the prosecution. However; after 5 years of struggle and mental torture, none of this mattered. Today, the so-called Turkish Justice system punished these people; who include a former Chief-of-Staff of Turkish Military (life sentence), a few opposition party MPs; a brilliant professor and Secular journalist and many other officers, journalists, intellectuals with very harsh prison sentences. What makes this tragedy a comedy is that the same person who has been accused of throwing a bomb to the “Republic” newspaper headquarters is also prosecuted in the same case together with a journalist from the same newspaper!! While the murdered of thousands of people, the convict leader of PKK is being treated like a freedom-fighter, the generals whom spent all their lives to honor the uniform and the flag and to protect Turkey are being treated as terrorists. In addition, while the Turkish authorities were very careful to make sure that the thousands of people en-route to the prison to protest the process were searched, they were not able to have the same integrity on our Syrian border which resulted in a bombing earlier this year resulting in the death of 50+ Turkish citizens. For those of you who know their history; you can compare the process to the McCarthy era to get a better idea. This is what my country has come to in its 90th year as a Republic. There have been many people and governments both domestically and internationally who applauded when these people came to power in 2002 due to the sake of democracy. When we raised our voice we were ousted as elitist, paranoid and back-minded statu-quo lovers. Now, they show their true face because there is nothing between them and full-authority. One last thing about people like myself; we are neither militarist nor coup d’état supporters. We just want freedom, democracy and Secular system to be protected and are against a twisted Justice system which punishes free-thinking Seculars because the “Sultan” wishes it while rapists, corrupt business-men & politicians walk free. 2013 has been a painful year for Turkey as most of you have read in the press, especially since early June with the Gezi Park protests. I know I wrote way too long, but I hope you can make the few minutes to digest all that is going on in my beloved country. Cheers
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 13:48:41 +0000
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