Turkey’s military leaders, in the face of rising speculation at home and abroad, took the extraordinary step last week of denying plans for a coup. But with domestic turmoil, a rising terrorist threat, chaos in the region and a history of military interventions in Ankara, the denials haven’t quieted buzz from Washington. Turkish generals have intervened… (more…)
A coup attempt in Turkey involves a substantial part of the military and “not just a few colonels”, a European Union source monitoring events in the EU candidate country said on Friday.
“It looks like a relatively well orchestrated coup by a substantial body of the military, not just a few colonels,” the source told Reuters.
“They’ve got control of the airports and are expecting control over the TV station imminently,” the source said, shortly before state television TRT broadcast a military declaration of martial law.
“They control several strategic points in Istanbul. Given the scale of the operation, it is difficult to imagine they will stop short of prevailing,” the source said.
Another European diplomat said he was attending a dinner with the Turkish ambassador in a European capital when they were interrupted by messages on their mobile phones.
“This is clearly not some tinpot little coup. The Turkish ambassador was clearly shocked and is taking it very seriously,” the diplomat told Reuters as the dinner party broke up.
(Reporting by Paul Taylor and Alastair Macdonald; Writing by Paul Taylor)
The battle has been raging over redefining marriage in Alabama, as the state’s constitution declares marriage to be between a man and a woman. However, federal courts are attempting to force the state to issue marriage licenses to those practicing sodomy. In an attempt to stop probate judges from issuing licenses arbitrarily, the Alabama Senate passes bill by a vote of 22-3 without having to obtain permission from a government official.
Senate Bill 377, a bill which would end marriage licensing and replace it with a contract process, was approved by the Alabama Senate on May 19.
According to the text of the bill, it would abolish the requirement to obtain a marriage license from the judge of probate.
“This bill would provide that marriage would be entered into by simple contract, would specify the information required to be included in the contract of marriage, would specify that each party entering into a contract of marriage would submit a properly executed contract to the judge of probate for recording, and would require the judge of probate to forward a copy of the contract of marriage to the Office of Vital Statistics,” reads the synopsis of the bill.
The synopsis then adds, “This bill would also authorize the judge of probate to collect a fee for recording the contract of marriage. This bill would provide that the fee currently collected by the judge of probate and paid to the district attorney upon issuance would be paid when the marriage contract is presented for recording. This bill would provide for an additional fee to be paid to the General Fund.”
This does not open up marriage for same-sex couples. According to the legislation:
Effective July 1, 2015, the only requirement to be married in this state shall be for parties 16 who are otherwise legally authorized to be married to enter into a contract of marriage as provided herein.
(b) A contract to be married shall contain the 19 following minimum information:
(1) The names of the parties.
(2) A statement that the parties are legally authorized to be married.
(3) A statement that the parties voluntarily and 24 based on each parties’ own freewill enter into a marriage.
(4) The signatures of the parties.
Keep in mind that in the State of Alabama it is still illegal for those practicing sodomy to engage in marriage.
Senator Greg Albritton (R-Bay Minette), who introduced the bill said, “The purpose of Senate Bill 377 is to bring order out of chaos.”
“The sanctity of marriage cannot be sanctified by government of men,” Albritton said. “That is where we have gotten ourselves in trouble.”
“When you invite the state into those matters of personal or religious import, it creates difficulties,” he added. “Go back long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Early twentieth century, if you go back and look and try to find marriage licenses for your grandparents or great grandparents, you won’t find it. What you will find instead is where people have come in and recorded when a marriage has occurred.”
In other words, Albritton wants the issue of marriage back in the hands of the Church. While the contract portion would be recognized legally, the requirements for marriage to be handled lawfully under the umbrella of the Church would remain intact.
Though Albritton hinted at a possible illegal ruling by the Supreme Court as being valid and not affecting the legislation, the question that needs to come to the forefront in all of this is why the state is issuing marriage licenses in the first place. Do your homework and you’ll discover that a racial component is part of that history. The second question that should be raised is why any state would sit idly by and wait on the Supreme Court to rule on this issue. Governors with any understanding and backbone would currently be declaring that they have no constitutional authority to rule in the matter and should simply warn the judge’s that no matter what their decision was, it was not within the purview of their jurisdiction to rule on the measure. Finally, it should be asked why a fee continues to be associated, and not just associated, but increased. According to Albritton, it was “to raise support.”
Though the bill itself does not define marriage, the Alabama constitution does. Amendment 774, adopted to the constitution in 2006 reads:
(a) This amendment shall be known and may be cited as the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment.
(b) Marriage is inherently a unique relationship between a man and a woman. As a matter of public policy, this state has a special interest in encouraging, supporting, and protecting this unique relationship in order to promote, among other goals, the stability and welfare of society and its children. A marriage contracted between individuals of the same sex is invalid in this state.
(c) Marriage is a sacred covenant, solemnized between a man and a woman, which, when the legal capacity and consent of both parties is present, establishes their relationship as husband and wife, and which is recognized by the state as a civil contract.
(d) No marriage license shall be issued in the State of Alabama to parties of the same sex.
(e) The State of Alabama shall not recognize as valid any marriage of parties of the same sex that occurred or was alleged to have occurred as a result of the law of any jurisdiction regardless of whether a marriage license was issued.
(f) The State of Alabama shall not recognize as valid any common law marriage of parties of the same sex.
(g) A union replicating marriage of or between persons of the same sex in the State of Alabama or in any other jurisdiction shall be considered and treated in all respects as having no legal force or effect in this state and shall not be recognized by this state as a marriage or other union replicating marriage.
Chief Justice Roy Moore has told state judges not to disregard the ruling of a federal court on Alabama’s constitution and marriage. He has made the case for what marriage is and where the right to marriage comes from, God. Moore encouraged Governor Robert Bentley to resist federal tyranny in the matter, but Bentley seems to be more geared towards political correctness than he does the truth about rights, marriage and his duty to the people of Alabama.
Led by Justice Moore, the Alabama Supreme Court also put a halt to illegal same-sex “marriages” across the state back in March.
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Posted on 21 December 2013.
On 17 December 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled by five votes against two that Switzerland violated the right to freedom of speech by convicting Doğu Perinçek, chairman of the Turkish Workers’ Party, for publicly denying the existence of any genocide against the Armenian people.
I. Background
On several occasions, the applicant had claimed that the idea of an Armenian genocide was ‘an international lie’. The reasoning adopted by the Swiss courts to find him guilty of racial discrimination (see the judgment of the Swiss Federal Tribunal) rested inter alia on the identification of a consensus about the existence of the Armenian genocide. In the view of the Swiss courts, because the Armenian genocide was the object of a ‘general historical and scientific consensus’, its existence had to be considered established as a matter of fact and could not be challenged in court – even though the issue had not been previously adjudicated by a court of law, and despite the fact that some degree of controversy persisted as to the legal qualification of these events.
II. The Court’s Decision
In its decision, the European Court of Human Rights indicated that it was not incumbent upon it to arbitrate controversial historical questions and make factual or legal findings concerning the massacres and deportations that occurred in Turkey in 1915. Rather, the court asked whether the interference in the applicant’s freedom of expression by the Swiss judicial authorities pursued a legitimate aim and was necessary in a democratic society.
The Court first acknowledged that the decision of the Swiss courts was ‘susceptible to serve the protection of the rights of others, namely the honour of the family and relatives of the victims of the atrocities committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian people’.
However, it found that, considered as a whole, the motives of the Swiss authorities were insufficient to warrant interference with the applicant’s rights. The Court recalled its jurisprudence on the freedom of speech, stressing that the protection of the European Convention on Human Rights extends ‘not only to “information” or “ideas” that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb’. Any restriction of the freedom of expression must respond to ‘a pressing social need’.
In assessing whether the interference was necessary, the Court first noted that the state’s margin of appreciation in this case was reduced because the comments of the applicant were part of a historical, legal and political debate of public interest. Then, the Court expressed caution about the ‘consensus approach’ adopted by the Swiss courts: it pointed out that a consensus was difficult to establish in relation to matters which, in the Court’s opinion, cannot be historically ascertained with absolute certainty, especially in view of the fact that genocide is a very specific and narrowly defined legal concept requiring a high threshold of proof. Finally, the Court cited pertinent developments before domestic courts in France and Spain and before the Human Rights Committee concluding that the criminalisation of opinions about historical facts that do not incite to violence or racial hatred cannot be justified.
III. Comments
The decision of the Court is most welcome. The line of reasoning of the Swiss authorities was indeed troubling, as it came very close to establishing a form of ‘dictature de la pensée unique’: a system which places one single opinion above all others, criminalises disagreement, and precludes any form of debate or discussion. As the Court rightly recalled, disturbing or shocking opinions deserve the full protection of the law. Opinions we deem unfounded, inappropriate, or despicable should be subject to debate and argumentation, not blind suppression. Indeed, as the Court has regularly stressed, ‘[s]uch are the demands of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no “democratic society”’.
The Court also reminds us of the necessity of ‘reducing genocide to law’. The term ‘genocide’ has been used, misused and abused and brandished as a rhetorical and political weapon to further diverse agendas. It should be kept in mind that the crime of genocide as defined under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide requires the specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’. A legal determination that genocide has been committed must be made irrespective of the scale and heinousness of the underlying crimes. The events painfully remembered by the Armenian people as Meds Yeghern (‘the Great Crime’) may well have constituted genocide. It is, however, for a court of law to make such determination, and even then, disagreement about the validity of such determination should arguably still be tolerated as long as it does not constitute hate speech. Genocide remains above all a legal construct – nothing more, and nothing less.
Turkey has a checkered history of coups. Some elements within the Turkish political system are always on the prowl to push an advancing country backward and impose its agenda on the millions who wish to leave behind a sordid political past.
The most recent and sinister of them all was planned by Ergenekon, which was exposed in time and thwarted to the relief of the majority in the country. However, the Ergenekon coup plot trial exposed the influence of the “deep state” and shocked the Turks who are left wondering as to what extent this organization could go to realize its objectives.
For those not well versed with Turkish politics, it would be imperative to explain the terms, “deep state” and “Ergenekon.”
Ergenekon is an alleged clandestine secularist ultra-nationalist organization with ties to members of the armed forces. This organization is believed to be a part of the “deep state,” which is alleged to be separate group of influential anti-democratic coalitions within the Turkish political system.
The coup plot trial exposed the deep penetration of members of this organization in almost every stratum of society. Most of the people tried and sentenced in the case were former army officials, former politician, journalists and academics.
Despite their failure in overthrowing the government, one of the convicts in the case, Mustafa Balbay, a politician, did not lose hope and tried to sow seeds of fear by proclaiming, “This fall season will be a hot one!”
This articulated threat was perhaps an attempt to link the Gezi Park protests to the verdicts in the Ergenekon coup trial. These people were sadly mistaken.
Let’s talk about the protests that saw a new kind of “citizen politics” and if studied carefully could help understand the changing dynamics in Turkish politics.
Those protests were a healthy sign for democracy in the country. But the ensuing violence and vandalism startled many a Turk. They had no problem with the idea of protests, per se, but use of violent measures and destruction of public property was never part of the plan. It did not take the nation much time to realize that the dark forces of the “deep state” were in action and all set to hijack the protests.
The actions of those elements were condemnable, as they served neither the cause of democracy nor civil liberties. They were representatives of a mentality that sought to maintain status quo in Turkey and a repetition of a bloody coups that will remain a blot in the history of the country.
I would like to take this opportunity to clarify it to many foreign commentators and analysts that the Gezi protesters had nothing to do with the violence that ensued. They were exercising their political right. It is heartening to know that Turkey has a young politically dynamic population that could rise to the occasion and is very well aware of its national interests and the red lines that if crossed will prove to be detrimental to the country.
However, coup-mongers were quick in their attempts to hijack the protests. Although they failed in their bid, they still are on the move. They are still trying to gain traction in one way or the other; not even realizing that Turkey has evolved over time. Turks will no longer act on the whims and wishes of a few. They are no longer hostages to a tiny minority who in the past had succeeded in imposing its will on them.
Interestingly, Balbay’s thinly-veiled threat played the trick. At the end of the protests, the nation waited with bated breath for the “hot season.” Everybody, whether directly involved in the Gezi protests or not, was waiting for things to heat up. Came September. The youth who mobilized the Gezi protests were nowhere to be found in the streets. That was a major shift in the political dynamics.
The Gezi protests, undoubtedly, has awakened the Erdogan’s Justice and Progress Party (AKP) to reality. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s initial response to the new phenomenon “citizen politics” — that sparked the largest wave of protests in Turkey’s history — was as expected. But it did not take him long in assessing public sentiments.
The dispute that started the Gezi protests has ended up with three times more trees being planted at Taksim. The Gezi project was canceled. It has been decided in principle that any major change in the city would be referred to a public referendum. That is called change, the democratic way. It shows that Turkish society has come a long way and evolved into a large body of responsible individuals who are aware of their rights and responsibilities and the elected leadership is also part of the same society.
On the heels of the protests, came the announcement of the “democratization” package. Prime Minister Erdogan began his address to the nation by offering a piece of advice for the pro-coup factions. He said: “The democratization package will make our people smile and keep the pro-coup factions up at night.”
He knew the reforms would not make everyone happy but he was sure that the package was a step forward in the direction of a “New Turkey.”
The reforms include allowing election campaigns to be conducted in languages other than Turkish and decriminalizing the use of Kurdish letters not found in the Turkish alphabet. All primary school students in state schools will now also no longer have to recite a deeply nationalistic vow at the start of each week, which begins with the words: “I am a Turk.”
Erdogan has invested much political capital in the peace initiative, which has drawn strong public support.
One of the highlights of the reforms is the enhanced freedom for governmental employees and the lifting of the decades-old ban on wearing headscarves, saying women employees would be allowed to cover their heads at state institutions except in the military and security services, and for judges and prosecutors.
The reforms sought to salvage a peace process with the Kurdish citizens by granting them special rights.
The package pleased a large part of the country, as well the United States and the European Union. Some people said, “Not enough but yes.” Some thought this path to democratization was realistic even though they were not pleased with Erdogan. Had another Gezi incident started off in the wake of this development, the protesters would have lost their credibility. Wasn’t this the message they longed to send? “We are here as Turks, Kurds, Sunnis etc., as well as believers and unbelievers.”
These developments indicate emergence of a new Turkey, a pluralistic society. In the coming days, we will better understand the ramifications of this democratization package as it is more broadly implemented and the results become known. It is even possible assuming positive results, new packages may be announced and perhaps a new Constitution may be drafted. However, the fact remains the Gezi incidents were a milestone in the history of Turkey. The government was genuinely in need of this vocal criticism. Will the protests continue? Of course, should the need arise; the world will once again see a peace-loving nation united for a just cause. This is the beauty of democracy.
• The writer is a commentator on Turkish TV and a columnist.
