Author: Aylin D. Miller

Saving Turkey’s democracy

In a fierce legal battle, Islamists and secularists are undermining the very system that can help them.

from the July 11, 2008 edition

Think of Turkey and the lively Grand Bazaar of Istanbul comes to mind, or the massive dome of Hagia Sophia. But its political fame is as the world’s longest-lived democracy in a Muslim country – an example that Islam and civil liberties can coexist. Now that democracy faces a severe test.

Turkey’s two most powerful political forces – Islamists, who head the government, and secularists, who run the military, courts, and bureaucracy – are engaged in a fierce battle for dominance in this NATO country. Their arena is the highly politicized legal system.

A judicial duel may not sound very dangerous. But to the degree that this duel harms the very democratic principles that allow both groups to thrive in the first place, the consequences could be grave.

Completely ignoring last year’s elections that returned the mildly Islamist ruling party, the AKP, to power with more popular support than ever, secularists are trying to overthrow the AKP in a constitutional court whose judges sympathize with the secularist cause.

Last week, the state’s chief prosecutor argued that the AKP should be outlawed because it violates the constitution’s strict separation of mosque and state – the legacy of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The trigger for the case was the AKP’s recent lifting of the ban on women’s Islamic head scarves at universities. It was a small but hugely symbolic attempt at greater religious freedom, but last month, the constitutional court rejected it.

The AKP’s general counter-strategy is to arrest alleged secular supporters of a suspected coup plot. At least 20 people were detained last week, including two retired generals. There is some evidence for the alleged plot, but some of these arrests look indiscriminate, involving journalists, for instance. The tactics mirror an AKP tendency toward intimidation, in which critics are jailed for months without charge.

Not just Turkey’s political and economic stability are at stake here. So are its membership talks with the European Union, its critical relations with neighbor Iraq (itself a fledgeling democracy), and its role-model status for Islam.

The underlying tension comes from fear of extremism – fear on one side that the AKP’s modest steps toward greater religious expression will morph into sharia law; on the other side, fear of secularists suppressing an increasingly devout population.

Both groups are at rough parity in the influence game. They need a trustworthy way to work out an acceptable balance for the role of religion in the Turkish public sphere.

A strong democracy can provide that “safe” way – but not if it’s subverted, as it is being now.

Given the high court’s track record, it’s likely to ban the AKP. A period of uncertainty will follow as the party tries to regroup, probably under a different name.

Even with this murky outlook, the onus is on the governing party to take every possible step to reassure Turks that it indeed supports a secular, rule-based democracy – as it’s said all along.

But if the undermining continues, and if Turkey’s leaders fail not only to respect the democracy they have but to improve it through eventual constitutional and judicial reform, they will simply drag their country down in a war of wills.

Source :

July 11, 2008
United Nations Security Council condemns reprehensible terrorist attack in Istanbul

Security Council President Le Luong Minh10 July 2008 – The Security Council has strongly condemned yesterdays terrorist attack on Turkish police protecting the United States Consulate General in Istanbul, which caused death and injury to Turkish police personnel.

While no staff inside the Consulate sustained injuries, three policemen and three of the attackers were killed in Wednesdays incident.

The members of the Security Council expressed their condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the people and the Governments of ^Turkey and the United States, Ambassador Le Luong Minh of Viet Nam, which holds the Councils rotating presidency for July, said in a statement read out to the press.

The Council also underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice, and urged all States to cooperate actively with the Turkish authorities to this end.

All acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, the statement added.

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Security Council sounds alarm on recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan

July 11, 2008
luxury hotel amid Byzantine ruins stirs debate over Turkey’s heritage

In Istanbul, luxury hotel amid Byzantine ruins stirs debate over Turkey’s heritage

ISTANBUL, Turkey: Most tourists to Istanbul inevitably make their way to its historic core along the Golden Horn, a peninsula rich in relics and monuments from the mighty Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

These days, the area is host to a modern-day battle over the expansion of a five-star hotel amid the ruins of an ancient palace.

The dispute pits government-backed developers of a site housing the luxury Four Seasons Hotel, occupying a converted, Ottoman-era prison, against critics who say work on a 60-room annex desecrate the remnants of a palace built by Constantine the Great in the fourth century.

Read full story…

July 10, 2008
Help Needed for a research – proof of document

If you have any information about the original copies please contact Turkish Forum

Attention: below documents are for general information only. The exact sources of these excerpts are not located yet!

[These excerpts reaffirms Chapter 21 of my book “The Genocide of Truth” in particular pages 433 > 435]

(Translated from FRENCH text or translation into English)

(Page 225) “HAYASTAN” No.2 – German paper in Armenian Language – (Text in Armenian speaks of definite German Victory)

(Label on the face of the newspaper in French)

February 1945 – The newspaper of the Armenian volunteers always announces final victory (to the left above: their badge decorated of one symbol resembling the swastika)! There are not more than very few copies of these Nazi Armenian newspapers, the most copies have been destroyed by the Armenians. Here is a copy of “Hayastan” which succeeded, survival!

(Page 226) “HAYASTAN” German paper in Armenian Language, No. 1(125)    Year 1945

Translation and summary of the Armenian newspaper ” Hayastan ”
The newspaper has three pages

First page

An address to the officers and the soldiers of Armenian volunteers units:

<Good wishes for the New Year, accompanied with the assurance of a certain victory and an absolute liberation of the country.>

A. Mouradian

Second page

Best wishes of General Sarkisjan addressed to Armenian volunteers.

< Congratulations and courage, to the volunteers who for many years, were forced to live far from the country, and those who are dear to them! However, everything depends on volunteers; happiness, as well as the freedom of motherland. It is the trust put in the bellicose ardor and weapons, which will bring freedom and will make possible to celebrate in the liberated country once again.>

Armenian wishes to all volunteers!

< The New Year will be placed under the signature of the battle, reinforced for the release of fatherland. Our volunteers cannot, receive like other friends, letters or parcels from their relatives who stayed at the home. Our parents and our friends in Soviet Union do not have celebration party; they are plunged in a state of distress, they hope and with beating hearts that we come back as liberators. Here, in Germany, the children have the bright eyes of joy in front of presents and decorated Christmas trees. Our children, in the country, have nothing similar. They are hungry and cold and ask their parents when the liberators will arrive. It is because of them that our primordial duty is to implement everything for the freedom of fatherland. They shout revenge for the injustice, which was made towards them, and towards their parents by Bolchevistes and it is our duty to avenge them. The old year is about to end, and a new begins. Something will happen once again! Bolchévisme also comes near to its end, and something else will replace it. You, the Armenian volunteers must be the torchbearers of this new order; it is necessary that you must be victorious.

Full of confidence, we enter the New Year. Victory will belong to us! Long live Armenia! Long live Armenian people! > Saharuni

(Page 241) (Photograp)

” DRO ” (Drastamat Kanajan), was born in 1884 in Igdir (which today is the favorable place of departure to the ascent of Ararat). Already at the age of 19 years he joined the party of Dashnaks and fought against Tatars in Sanzegur. He assasinated prince Nacashidsé and the General Alichanov and he ran away to the Ottoman Empire.

After 6 years in security in Turkish banishment, he returns back to the Empire of Tsar, immediately after the start of war in 1914, to fight Turks there. In 1918 he is the leader of the Armenian troops, which attack the neighboring country.

Only 90 kilometers before Tblisi, the Giorgians could push back, the completely unjustified war and the Armenian attack. For the first time, the worldwide opinion was absolutely misinformed by news of massacres, acquainted with the true character of Armenian nationalism. At the end of 1920 Dro became the “Minister of the Defense” of Vratsian’s Armenian government! Together with Hovannes Terterian he signed the capitulation of his motherland in Bolsheviks, and was dictator of the military sovereignty for few weeks.

Stalin was received in Moscow; some time before Dro would have obviously saved the life of the Giorgian Dshugashvili (Stalin).

After a brief stay in Romania, he joined the Nazis and fought as commander of group of soldiers of an Armenian unit on the Crimea and in Caucasus and soon he became the leader of the Armenian Information Service.

He was so-called, the best informed perso about the third Reich.

In April, 1945 Americans arrested him, but they soon released him, because American Dashnaks of Boston had intervened in his favor. After a stay in Lebanon and many trips, he died in Boston in 1956.

Because of his eventful and completely immoral life, which was exclusively orientated in an exaggerated and irrational nationalism, in which he submitted everything without having ever made sacrifices himself, “Dro” can be classified as one of the most tragic faces of wrong valuation which has ever existed in the bloody history of the Armenian people.

A typical case of Armenian political madness: Hitler, Himmler and Henjakistes…

This was not all of H.

Political fanatics of all colors, camps of the political ghosts of Armenians joined the “crusade” of the Nazis against their ancient Soviet confederates, with whom they had just shared in brothers Poland and Baltic countries, to die so for absurd phantasm to give rise by Hitlerian help to a National Socialist Great Armenia under the shade of the Great Germany.

The peak of the absurdity of this alliance was reached when in December 1942, General Armenian Dro (Drastamat Kanajan), who was considered to be the Armenian hero par excellence, and the writer Garo Kevorkian visited to the “leader of the Reich ”

Mr. Heinrich Himmler and presented him a book of the pastor Lepsius: “The walk to death of the Armenian people “.

It is obvious to think that this upset neither “Dro” nor Himmler, because they were themselves sending people in death!

Himmler having given orders to kill millions, “Dro” nevertheless to thousands, appearing a priori on the list of death of Russians, and about 30.000 Armenians, who followed on the appeal of Mr ” Dro ” and affected to the Nazis!

But Dro, had practice and experience to kill without scruples and Himmler was so impressed by him as after a talk of one hour and a half in prisoners’ camp east of Berlin, that he made him drive in his own car, so that “Dro” could choose his men there.

He visited Armenian units in the oriental front several times, to impress them by his eloquence.

As he knew the Soviet situation particularly well, he was soon taken for the most important German spy, in Soviet matters.

Precisely for his level of incomparable information, it is unpardonable that he forced his Armenian compatriots literally until the last minute in the battle that was a hopeless since a long time, and had no glory. While he was released already after a short time by American occupying force, thanks to his very good relations in United States and died very esteemed, even loved immoderately by his compatriots and after several world tours, in Boston, where the mighty party of Dashnaks still are in command.

Armenian commitment for the national socialist Germany probably had the purpose to delimit Jews in a very clear manner from the Armenians in territories dominated by the Nazis, though many ignorant, among of those who shared… (Rest is unreadable)

(Thanks to Mr. Taner Ertunc for providing photos and French version, translated by A.B. into English)                  Sukru S. Aya

July 10, 2008
Germany Cannot Understand Closure Case

German Ambassador Says His Country Cannot Understand Closure Case Against Turkey’s Ruling Party

German Ambassador in Ankara Eckart Cuntz says :

“We cannot understand why a democratic party, which came to power with 47 percent of votes, is wanted to be closed.

I hope that every institution in Turkey is aware of their responsibilities about European norms and values, such as the Venice criteria, democracy, human rights, rule of law, and secularism.

We stand side by side with Turkey. We want a strong Turkey and we support its European Union membership.”

July 10, 2008
3 German Climbers Kidnapped

Turkish troops have been sent to rescue three German climbers who were kidnapped by Kurdish rebels high on Mount Ararat, an official said. The official, Gov. Mehmet Cetin of Agri Province, told the news agency Dogan that the climbers, part of a 13-member German team, were abducted late Tuesday from their camp at 10,500 feet. The 10 other Germans on the team returned to the city of Agri, Mr. Cetin said. The separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party is banned in Germany, where the authorities have arrested and tried suspected supporters.

The New York Times

July 10, 2008