“They stole 26 months from my life,” Ilker Basbug tells reporters after being released from prison
A former Turkish army chief who was sentenced to life for his role in a plot to overthrow the government has been freed from prison in Istanbul.
A local court ordered the release of Gen Ilker Basbug, a day after Turkey’s constitutional court overturned his sentence citing a legal technicality.
Gen Basbug, who was in charge of the Turkish military from 2008 to 2010, was sentenced to life in August 2013.
Dozens of people were charged over the alleged plot.
Gen Basbug was found guilty of leading a shadowy network of hard-line nationalists known as Ergenekon.
The group was said to have plotted to topple the current government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
But Gen Basbug, who has always denied the charges, walked free on Friday.
‘Rights violations’
Turkey’s constitutional court ruled on Thursday that Gen Basbug’s imprisonment had violated his rights.
The court trying him had failed to publish a detailed verdict on the case, it said.
Speaking outside the prison in Istanbul, where he had been held for over two years, Gen Basbug said: “Those who acted with hatred and revenge kept us here for 26 months. They stole 26 months from my life.”
Crowds of supporters gathered outside Silivri prison, awaiting the release of Mr Basbug
His lawyer, Ilkay Sezer, welcomed the release but said there were “many more people in jails who are suffering severe health problems and who have been victims of these courts”.
Hundreds of people were jailed in 2012 and 2013 in two high-profile cases, called Sledgehammer and Ergenekon.
In January, the high command of the armed forces and opposition both demanded a retrial for the officers.
Prime Minister Erdogan later said he favoured a retrial, in what many saw as a political turnaround.
In February, the Turkish parliament abolished the specially appointed courts that tried the officers, increasing the possibility of retrials for those convicted.
The latest ruling comes amid heightened political tensions in Turkey over alleged corruption within the government.
The ruling AK Party is rooted in Islam and has moved to curb the power of the Turkish military, which sees itself as guardian of the modern secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
I’m standin’ here. You make the move. You make the move. It’s your move. Huh? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Well, then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well, I’m the only one here.
Travis Bickle, TAXI DRIVER
TREASON TIME WITH TRAVIS
TREASON: The betrayal of one’s own country by waging war against it or by consciously or purposely acting to aid its enemies.
MISPRISION OF TREASON:The deliberate concealment of one’s knowledge of a treasonable act or a felony.
Hey Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu! Hey you! I’m talkin’ to you! I’m talkin’ to you, Mister Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The leader of the that sissy-boy “opposition” party! What are you doing? All the time backin’ off, backin’ off, talkin’ away at the parliament like it all means somethin’. It don’t mean nothin’ to me and people like me, that’s for sure. Takin’ it, takin’ it for years you’ve been takin’ it from that religious mob that lies, cheats and steals like a plague of cancer. And you, playin’ word games with them while they destroy your country. Not smart, Kılıçdaroğlu, not smart at all. Them guys stole everything…everything, even the mosques and the police and the army for God’s sake. And where the hell were you, Mr. Opposition Party Big Shot? They even stole the mountains and the forests and the trees and the streets and the air and they even got the big ships. And you? You got the baby carriage and the garbage pail. And you’re the only one there, you’re the boss. So pay attention, understand? I’m talkin’ to you…man-to-man, I’m talkin’ to you! You got that? Good, because here’s a man who won’t take it anymore. Not from these government criminals destroyin’ our country while you and your rabbits sit on your collective duffs. They embarrass me, these people, so stupid they are. They think we’re stupid too and that’s the worst part. That, and lookin’ at you and your boys hangin’ around all day in them big red chairs waitin’ for the word to come from their big boss. Then you all jump up like hungry dogs at chicken bones. You try to be clever in your retorts but you don’t say nothin’ and you embarrass us a second time. So do somethin’, Kılıçdaroğlu, somethin’ with courage. I drive a taxi all day and all night. And that takes courage. So you do likewise, be brave and earn some respect. Walk out of that cesspool of a parliament. Leave shoe boxes on your desks as complementary mementos to the thieves-in-charge. Then all of you take a hike over to the criminal court and file those treason and misprision of treason cases against the gangster government. And throw in the American ambassador and his fellow agents for good luck. And we the people will hail you in the streets.
We’ll show them, won’t we Kemal? You’re the main opposition man! You can be the big dude prime minister even without kissin’ America’s feet. And I’m gonna get you in shape right now. Too much sittin’ is ruinin’ your body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on, it will be fifty push-ups each morning, fifty pull-ups. There’ll be no more pills, there’ll be no more bad food, no more destroyers of your body. From now on, it will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight. I’m one of your biggest supporters, you know. I tell everybody that comes in this taxi that they have to vote for you. You understand? Are you still lookin’ at me? Good, because I’m lookin’ at you…hard!
Mr. Travis Bickle
Somewhere in traffic in Istanbul
25 December 2013
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Erasmus
Forget what the big-mouth crime ministers and the duplicitous oral cavities of selected foreign ministers are shouting about democracy. About political “mandates.” About how they represent the living essences of “the will of the people.” And about how they all care so deeply for all the downtrodden and abused of the world. These ignoramus champions of democracy shamelessly harangue the world ad nauseam about the importance of elections, elections, elections. Remember the purple index fingers wagging after the first post-Saddam election in Iraq? And the wonderful “democracy” that followed and is still slaughtering its citizens. If democracy only needs elections then we are all indeed lost on the road to ruin with our purple index fingers tucked securely where the sun don’t shine. All these crime ministers and “Nobel” presidents babble gibberish because they understand very little about democracy. And the biggest babbler of all? The ever-scowling, ever-treacherous winner of the 2010 (and last) Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the crime minister of that so-called democracy, Turkey. The award was cancelled after Al-Gaddafi was disemboweled and anal raped by the valiant democratic gangs aided and abetted by NATO under the inspirational leadership of the two international thugs who are now attempting to destroy Syria, “Bonnie” Obama and his partner in international crime, “Clyde” Erdoğan. They have yet to be added to the following list of democratically elected dictators. But their day may be nearing.
The following betrayers of their oaths of office also had mandates. And they all promptly forgot, ignored or destroyed the other aspects of a democratic form of government. Elections without a fully aware, fully protected, fully functioning electorate are worthless. And also worthless were the elections of these dictators:
Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan), 1991-present
Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, Paraguay, 1813-1840
Jorge Ubico, Guatemala, 1931-1944
Forbes Burnham, Guyana, 1966-1984
Artur de Costa e Silva, Brazil 1947-1969
Juan Maria Bordaberry, Uruguay, 1972-1976
Alberto Fujimori, Peru, 1992-93
Mohamed Morsi, Egypt, 2012-2013
François Duvalier, Haiti, 1959-1971
Adolph Hitler, Germany, 1933-1945
It need not even be said that those who are democratically elected are duty-bound to honor and support both the process and institution called democracy. None of the above did, despite swearing to do so.
So let’s examine today’s most vocal defender of his own “democratic” essence, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. How does his own country, Turkey, stand regarding its democratic structure? “Democracy,” Erdoğan once declared, “is like a trolley car. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.” This is a vitally important statement. While it reveals what we already know about Erdoğan, it also confirms that he knows nothing about the democratic process and, more dangerously, has no respect for the concept. Astounding it is that such a person could even be considered electable in a secular democracy. But then even the street dogs in Istanbul know how THAT happened. It undoubtedly will come as a surprise and shock to Erdoğan when learns that democracy is intended to outlast its participants and is not merely a stop at a mosque, a Turkish bath or the White House. Such deceit-filled thinking is typical of the deceptive language used throughout the decade-long Erdoğan regime.
This screwed-up thinking is akin to his and his party’s claim that the mean old dictator, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, traumatized the citizens of the new Turkish Republic by changing the alphabet from Ottoman script to Roman script. Trauma indeed, for a nation’s people of whom 90% lived in rural areas and 97% were illiterate! Forget the trauma of unlearning one and relearning another alphabet, they never knew one in the first place. Instead, it was the “thrill” of enlightenment which “traumatized” them, a learning experience (or trauma) which still seems to have eluded Erdoğan and his supporters. In fact, Atatürk knew instinctively what the new republic’s fundamentally impoverished people needed most in order to live and prosper in a modern secular state and future democracy. And that was first, literacy, then, education.
It is important to expand this point. To remediate this national educational deficit, Atatürk conceived of a nationwide rural learning system called the Village Institute. Designed to teach language skills and much more, it began in 1940. Six years later, the first fatal sign of Turkish compliance with America’s needs appeared. Godless communism had become a threat after the World War II and God-filled Turkey had a job to do. And so came the nonsense of the Islamic Green Belt protecting the west and the tagging of Turkey as a religious nation. Thus the Village Institute System must be disbanded. Too risky. Too red. Those bad communists would infiltrate and overthrow everything. So it follows that the disaster that is Turkey today regarding the great percentage of its uninformed voters began with the abandonment of the Village Institute system. How generous were the Turkish democratic politicians selling out to America’s interests. So today illiteracy rates, particularly among rural women remain uncomfortably high. But no one, least of all, Erdoğan is concerned. It keeps him afloat politically. So far.
But let’s start at the beginning. What does a country need to maintain a viable flourishing democracy? First, its citizens need guaranteed protections, else why sign-on as citizens. This is codified in a constitution which enumerates the nature and conditions of personal and political rights. It also states the terms of fair and free elections. Also vital to democracy is the inviolable presence of an independent judiciary uninfluenced by the political regime. Another key requirement of democracy is the separation of powers, namely that executive, legislative and judicial branches operate independently. And how about Mr. Erdoğan’s record after swearing to support and defend the constitution of Turkey?
He has actively worked to subvert it. He has illegally detained and/or incarcerated thousands of those opposed to his regime. Articles dealing with freedom of speech, assembly, and media expression have been trampled by the heavy boots of religious fascism. The courts are the extension of the ruling party and the ruling party is simply Erdoğan, himself. He has even declared himself to be the “chief prosecutor” of a sham case called Ergenekon. And what about the security of the nation’s borders? Erdoğan, aided and abetted by America, has destroyed the nation’s defense system. The experienced commanding general staff is in prison. The collaborators now command. Senior officers sold out their subordinates. One general is even considered to have been a secret witness against his comrades in arms. So much for moral and esprit-de-corps. So much for trust and honor. So much for the viability of the military academies. Equally worrisome, the police rule with a viciousness unparalleled since the good old days of Pinochet’s Chile and Hitler’s Germany. The Gezi Park Movement revealed the full horror of Erdoğan’s state police. Even more troublesome for the Turkish citizenry, is the questionable allegiance of the nation’s security forces. They seem to be oddly influenced and even controlled by a foreign power, namely a longstanding CIA asset/imam residing in Pennsylvania. (In case this sounds strange to you, it has been in all the newspapers, even a few in Turkey). Worse yet, Erdoğan has jeopardized the nation’s security by collaborating with America in the destruction of numerous North African and Middle East nations, most lately Syria and Egypt. Put plainly, these have been disasters for all concerned, and a political and moral disaster for Erdoğan. The integrity of the Turkish state seems at great risk, particularly regarding its eastern borders. And finally, let’s speak of Erdoğan’s favorite subject, elections. The election campaigns, aside from his usual bombast, has consisted of bribes-for-votes. Coal, food, even refrigerators (whether or not the village has electricity) are delivered to the ever-grateful, if somewhat bemused, masses living in the hinterlands.
So what, you might be saying. That’s the way democracy works in the world. And anyway, all politicians are thieves and liars. Tragically, perhaps you are right. So let’s all just lean back and enjoy our extermination. But I am talking about Turkey here, a nation chosen by America to be a role model of Islamic democracy so peace can reign throughout the carnage that has always been the Middle East. Of course, the premise is ludicrous, even delusional. We all know it. And now the world knows it. How the people of the democratic, secular Republic of Turkey have suffered from this catastrophic delusion promoted by their deluding politicians. A few questions are necessary to complete this analysis of Erdoğan’s democratic credentials.
Is it a democracy when someone writing a political opinion unfavorable to the regime is jailed?
Is it a democracy when newspapers are controlled by the political regime?
Is it a democracy when citizens exercise their constitution right to assemble and are brutally attacked by police with tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, real bullets, clubs, truncheons, boots, scimitars, butcher knives and blades of all varieties?
Is it a democracy when these same police are celebrated by the prime minister as heroes? Is it a democracy when telephone conversations are recorded without a court order?
Is it a democracy when people are arrested and incarcerated for years without due process?
Is it a democracy when a prime minister’s children openly campaign to subvert the provisions of the Turkish constitution?
Is it a democracy when houses are ransacked in “fishing expeditions” for evidence without court order? Is it a democracy when a nation’s judicial system is controlled by the ruling political party?
Is it a democracy when the police brutally assault, even murder, innocent citizens and are not held accountable? Is it a democracy when secret witnesses give testimony that is never examined in open court?
Is it a democracy when journalists, writers, academicians, political thinkers, rot in jail because they dare to have ideas?
Is it a democracy when convicted murderers of judges are bribed to give secret testimony and are afterwards acquitted?
Is it a democracy when an entire military leadership cadre is jailed on trumped-up charges that even schoolchildren would laugh at?
Is it a democracy when anyone opposed to the ruling party is considered a terrorist? I
Is it democracy when opposition parties that gain less than 10% of the total vote are denied seating in parliament?
Is it democracy when a prime minister advises neighbors to report to the police other neighbors who bang on pots and pans in protest against his regime?
Is it democracy when school authorities are told to inform on students and teachers who may have participated in the Gezi Park protests?
Is it a democracy when prime ministers insult the legitimacy of religious groups such as the Alevites in Turkey?
Is it a democracy when the houses of Alevites are marked with hate messages?
Is it a democracy when government vendettas are conducted against businesses, humanitarian organizations, lawyers and doctors, all those public spirited entities, who act to defend the constitutionally guaranteed interests of innocent citizens being brutally attacked by the state police force?
Is it a democracy when a government engages in general devastation of the environment, larceny of a nation’s treasure, captures the public space as its own, conducts unremitting surveillance of the populace, degrades the civil conscience and constantly rebukes contrary opinions?
If so, then what? If not, then what?
Regarding Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, what is he?
Cem Ryan, Ph.D.
Istanbul
19 August 2013
“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’?”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Bilal Erdoğan, the Turkish prime minister’s son. 16 August 2013. At Fatih Mosque, Istanbul, participating in a demonstration for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Placards advocated against democracy and for the return of the caliphate
Demonstration at Fatih Mosque, Istanbul. 16 August 2013
Demonstration at Fatih Mosque, Istanbul. 16 August 2013
The Ergenekon verdicts in Turkey announced on August 5 shook the Turkish judicial system and left an indelible mark on the conscience of Turkish people. The confidence that most Turks had in their judicial system received a major blow. Jail sentences were showered on all but 21 of the 275 defendants, including nearly two dozen journalists.
The case started 5 years ago, but arrests and detentions started 6 years ago.
The hearing was held in prison compound in Silivri, 70 km from Istanbul, in an atmosphere of martial law, at arms distance from police barriers, water cannons and gas bombs, and within an earshot of rubber bullets, with chanting, flag-waiving protestors taking shelter in scorched, burning fields, while countless busses trying to bring plain folk to the compound from across the country were stopped on track by government order. It was not a pretty picture. Not for a government that preaches democracy.
Due process, including the right to speak before sentencing, and the right to have next-of-kin present at the trial, was denied to the defendants. Holding hearings in a prison compound also drew criticism.
ALLEGED PLOT
Officially, “Ergenekon” was the name of a clandestine terrorist organization that tried to overthrow the Turkish government. Politicians (three of them parliamentary deputies), journalists, academics, university presidents and retired and active-duty military officers, including 4-star generals, were members of an alleged terrorist organization.
A terrorist establishment, as it turned out, that lacked a leader, an organizational chart, and a manifesto. A group, most members of which had not even known each other. No document bearing the name “Ergenekon” existed in the state archives, and no weapons had been found in possession of any of the terrorists. To implement their nefarious plans, we are led to believe, the terrorists relied on a cache of hand grenades found in a shanty house in 2007, and later in the garden (buried) of a deserted house in 2009. The hand grandees were destroyed soon after “discovery.”
There were indications that the ammunition “discovered” had been planted, and doubts lingered in the press as to whether the ammunition found was live. Defendants denied the validity of incriminating evidence introduced during the trial, and in one case, the prosecution admitted that the incriminating message found in the mobile phone of a defendant had been “mistakenly recorded” by police. Many defendants, including the world-renown transplant surgeon Prof. Dr. Mehmet Haberal, said they did not know what they had done wrong.
But these concerns did not stop the prosecution from filing a series of indictments running thousands of pages.
It was extraordinary that a pro-Sharia convict, found guilty in a prior murder case (assassination of Council of State judge), and implicated in the bombing of the secular-oriented daily “Cumhuriyet,” was brought into the Ergenekon case as a suspect and tried together with defendants that were starkly opposite in ideology. The convict, whom the prosecutors affectionately called “Osmanım” (“My Osman’), turned a secret prosecution witness and was set free at the end of the trial. “It was a payoff,” observed the opponents.
It was ironic that journalists İlhan Selçuk (now deceased) and Mustafa Balbay, columnists at “Cumhuriyet,” became co-defendants with criminals that had bombed their daily.
Among the secret witnesses was Şemdin Sakık, at one time a high-ranking leader of the terrorist organization PKK.
THE REALITY
But in reality, the Ergenekon was a plot orchestrated to undermine the very foundation of a democratic, secular state by silencing the opponents of the current Islamic government. A desire to “settle the score” in connection with the 1997 “soft coup” against the Islamist Farewell Party – an event that forced Fethullah Gülen to flee to the U.S. – no doubt also played a role.
One attribute that united the Ergenekon defendants was their conviction in a secular, democratic state driven by Kemalist reforms.
It was very unusual that a sitting Prime Minister, ignoring the separation of the executive and judiciary powers, declared himself early in the trial to be the prosecutor of the case.
A court case that attracted wide criticism in its breach of judiciary standards. Although the court has not yet issued the basis for its conclusions, legal experts familiar with the case have characterized the verdicts as absurd, arbitrary, inconsistent, and disproportionate.
One journalist, Tuncay Özkan, receiving an aggravated life sentence, said after the verdicts that, although he was exonerated of charges of keeping weapons and ammunition in his house, was penalized because he – much to the dislike of the government – had organized the “Cumhuriyet meetings.”
Balbay, receiving a 34-year and 8 months jail sentence, maintained all along that he was penalized for doing his job as a journalist. He denounced the treatment the defendants received on the day of sentencing, adding that even an occupying force would have acted in a more respectful manner. He was particularly resentful that “Osmanım” had been released.
Another journalist/author, Ergün Poyraz, who has written books critical of the PM Erdoğan and Fethullah Gülen (e.g., Children of Moses, The Imam in America), and under detention since 2007, was sentenced to 29 years 6 months of aggravated jail sentence.
Doğu Perinçek, the leader of the Workers’ Party (İP), receiving aggravated life term, said he does not recognize the verdict.
Perhaps the defendant that attracted most attention was İlker Başbuğ, the former Chief of Staff of the military, who received life sentence. General Başbuğ was appointed to the top military post by the Prime Minister, and for two years served directly under the PM.
As someone who commanded the second largest NATO army, the verdict against Başbuğ rattled the political establishment, and no doubt also the military. How to explain a terrorist commanding a 700,000 strong army, how his terrorist activities had gone unnoticed, and what all this means for NATO, were questions that naturally came to mind.
Main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said the verdicts were illegitimate, adding that those who had appointed Başbuğ to the top post should be tried on charges of supporting terrorism. The government spokesman Bülent Arınç, deputy PM, issued a warning to Kılıçdaroğlu.
Başbuğ himself said the target in the Ergenekon case was the Turkish army. He was pointedly indignant that he was denied a right that was granted to Saddam Hussein: the right to speak before his sentence was announced. Four other retired 4-star generals received life term.
As for the academics, Peter Diamond, a professor of economics at M.I.T. and a Nobel laureate, after having looked into the cases of eight academics, concluded that there appeared to be no credible evidence to convict his colleagues.
Judge Köksal Şengün, who, for three years, presided over the 3-man panel of judges in “Ergenekon,” but later removed from the case, commented that he could not support the verdicts. With 187 hearings behind him, Şengün was well familiar with the evidence. Upon his removal from the case in 2011, Şengün disclosed that he was in favor of dismissing many charges, but was opposed by the two other judges.
PUTTING IT IN CONTEXT
With all of its implications, “Ergenekon” marks a dark chapter in Turkey’s history.
Alluding to the draconian sentences handed out by the court, some observes drew analogy to the death sentence announced by the Istanbul government against Mustafa Kemal in May 1920.
Turkey’s Syndicate of Judges, an independent organization, declared the Ergenekon convictions null and void because two reserve judges, with no voting rights, participated in the final deliberations preceding sentencing. Such participation violated the law, it was noted.
There is a general feeling that the government intends to declare a general amnesty encompassing the Ergenekon victims and the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. That would open the door for the terrorist leader – now serving life term – to be released from prison.
A scenario that, if materializes, would surely create a firestorm in Turkey.
In the background to the Ergenekon imbroglio lies the near-unanimous 2008 decision of the Constitutional Court that found that the ruling party had become the focal point for anti-secularist movements. The ruling party at that time barely escaped closure. The make-up of the Constitutional Court has since changed.
All this happening in a country where the government boasts of the freedom expression while children 16 years of age are dragged to court on charges of insulting the Prime Minister because they tore down a poster bearing the PM’s Bayram message.
Istanbul-based British analyst Gareth Jenkins, who has reviewed the voluminous documents in the Ergenekon case, has concluded that there is no such organization as Ergenekon, and that the investigation bearing this name was carried out as a collaborative effort between RTE and Fethullah Gülen. He has stressed the role of the Gülen movement. Jenkins appears correct in his conclusions.
But the story Jenkins tells is incomplete. To ascribe the “success” of the Ergenekon plot solely to RTE-Gülen cooperation is to overlook the limitations of such alliance. A meticulously planned plot, “Ergenekon” could not have been executed without outside help. The story of a third, “dark force,” that provided clandestine help in “Ergenekon,” also needs to be told.
ON MONDAY, AUGUST 5, TURKISH DEMOCRACY WILL DIE IN PUBLIC, STRIPPED NAKED BY THE FORCES OF FASCISM AND TREASON. ALL APPROPRIATE AND DISPROPORTIONATE VIOLENCE WILL BE RENDERED.
THE BIGGEST LEGAL FIASCO IN HISTORY, ONE CALLED ERGENEKON, WILL BE DECIDED BY JUDGES WHO HAVE SPENT YEARS SLEEPING AT THE BENCH. IN BIZARRE HARMONY, THE HAPLESS ACCUSED HAVE SPENT YEARS IN PRISON AWAITING THEIR RIGHT TO A SPEEDY TRIAL DUE TO DELAYS IN THE GATHERING, TAMPERING, POLLUTING AND CREATION OF EVIDENCE. COMPLICATING MATTERS FURTHER, SECRET WITNESSES HAD REMAINED SO SECRETIVE THAT THEY WERE DIFFICULT TO LOCATE AND COMPENSATE. THUS DIRECT CONFRONTATION AND EXAMINATION BY DEFENSE COUNSELS WAS NOT AVAILABLE.
BUT THIS MONDAY, THIS BLOODY MONDAY, WILL BE THE DAY THAT JUSTICE SPEAKS GIBBERISH AND ALLTHE CLOCKS IN TURKEY RUN BACKWARDS. ALL PEOPLE WHO BELIEVED IN THE RULE OF LAW WILL GATHER IN PUBLIC DISBELIEF AT THE ABSURD VERDICT RENDERED BY ABSURD JUDGES EDUCATED AT THE ALICE IN WONDERLAND SCHOOL OF LAW.
THE GOVERNOR OF ISTANBUL, A MAN NAMED HAPPY, HAS HAPPILY BUT UNDEMOCRATICALLY BANNED ALL GATHERINGS, DEMONSTRATIONS, CHANCE MEETINGS, AND SOCIAL DATES BETWEEN BEAUTIFUL WOMEN AND HANDSOME MEN WITHIN 15,000 KILOMETERS OF THE COURT, WHICH IS LOCATED AT THE PRISON. UNHAPPILY NAMED SILIVRI, THE PRISON IS IN FACT 380,000 KILOMETERS (ON AVERAGE) FROM THE EARTH ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. SOMEWHAT PARADOXICALLY, GOVERNOR HAPPY CONFIDENTLY CLAIMS TO BE A LAWYER.
TO CHEER AND HASTEN THE CITIZENRY ON ITS COLLECTIVE WAY TO DISBELIEF AND DESPAIR, GOVERNOR HAPPY HAS ASSEMBLED DIVISIONS OF ROBOCOPS TO SQUEEZE PEPPER GAS AND BATTALIONS OF RUBBER-BULLET MARKSMEN TO LACERATE FOREHEADS AND DESTROY EYE SOCKETS. SINCE THE WEATHER WILL BE SEASONABLY HOT, THE EVER HELPFUL HAPPY WILL GATHER HIS COLORFUL FLEETS OF ACID WATER SPRAY TRUCKS TO REFRESH THE BY NOW BEATEN, BRUISED AND SEMICONSCIOUS CITIZENS OF WHAT WAS ONCE CALLED THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY, A SECULAR NATION OPERATING UNDER THE RULE OF LAW.
MONDAY, BLOODY MONDAY, THE SADDEST OF ALL POSSIBLE DAYS.
Cem Ryan Istanbul, the unhappiest of cities in the unhappiest of countries
4 August 2013
“It was a cold, bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.” 1984, George Orwell
Turkish police fires tear gas, water cannons at around 10,000 demonstrators protesting trial of hundreds accused of plotting to topple government.
Middle East Online
Revolt against ‘Islamisation’ of Turkey
SILIVRI (Turkey) – Turkish police on Monday fired tear gas and water cannons at around 10,000 demonstrators protesting a mass trial of hundreds accused of plotting to topple the government, leading to three injuries and a lengthy delay in the hearing.
A photographer saw protesters trying to breach a security barricade by hurling stones at the police outside the prison complex in Silivri, a suburb on the outskirts of Istanbul.
One demonstrator suffered a non-fatal heart attack and two journalists were injured, CNNTurk channel reported, as police tried to disperse the protesters who waved Turkish flags and chanted “justice for all”.
The police resorted to water cannons and tear gas, which spread to the courtroom in wind and led to a more than two-hour delay in the hearing of 275 defendants scheduled for Monday.
The protest was called by opposition groups and political parties as an Istanbul court prepared to hear the closing arguments in a four-year trial of defendants who stand accused of having ties to an ultranationalist “terrorist network” known as Ergenekon.
Hearings are frequently delayed due to similar scuffles breaking out in front of the high-security compound, as well as quarrels inside the volatile courtroom.
The hearing has been postponed to Thursday.
A vast array of top military figures, lawyers, academics and journalists are accused of instigating an uprising against the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, in power since 2002.
If convicted, they face sentences ranging from seven-and-a-half years in prison to life.
Prosecutors last month sought life jail terms for the 64 top suspects, who include former army chief Ilker Basbug and nine other active and former generals, accused of “attempting to overthrow the Turkish government by force”.
A final verdict is not expected before a few weeks.
The trial is one of several cases brought by the AKP against the once omnipotent army which has been responsible for four coups in half a century.
In a separate case last year, dubbed the “Sledgehammer” trial after a military exercise, Turkey jailed three former generals for 20 years each and handed prison terms to dozens of officers.
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