A wave of arrests of prominent persons allegedly linked to a nationalist
conspiracy jolted Turkey on Tuesday, just as the country's constitutional court
was about to start hearing a case brought by the chief prosecutor to close down
the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) for breaching the country's
secularist system.
Police in Ankara, Istanbul and three other cities across Turkey raided homes
and offices, making 23 arrests and issuing a search warrant for another.
Several of those detained were arrested on the runway of Ankara airport after
getting off a plane from Istanbul.
Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur, two retired generals, headed the list of those
arrested. Tolon is regarded as an outspoken nationalist. Eruygur is a former
gendarmerie commander whose
name was linked last month by pro-government media with alleged attempts to set
up a secret organization called the "Republic Working Group" inside the armed
forces in 2002.
Others, however, came from the professions, business and the media. They
included Sinan Aygun, head of the Ankara Chamber of Trade, Ercument Ovali, a
leading medical professor, Mustafa Balbay, the Ankara bureau chief of
Cumhuriyet, a staunchly Kemalist newspaper. Among premises raided by police
were the offices of the "Contemporary Thought Association", an Kemalist
organization promoting secularism and previously regarded as a hotbed of
middle-class respectability.
All are accused of having links with a shadowy nationalist organization called
Ergenekon, said to be plotting against the government.
The arrests were announced during a press conference by Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. Referring to to the Ergenekon case, the prime minister said, "I
wish that this case will now produce a result. There are those who think there
is a relationship between it and us [a reference to the AKP.] Those who think
that we are making it happen are mistaken," the premier told reporters.
Police raids and arrests of persons said to be linked to Ergenekon began last
autumn, but initially involved mainly ultra-nationalists such as Kerim
Kerincsiz, an Istanbul lawyer who organized noisy protests against Nobel
Prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk and Turkish-Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink. A
retired brigadier, Veli Kucuk, also being held, is said to be the central
figure among the first detainees. To date, no charges have been produced but
there have been media suggestions of a plot to assassinate Pamuk.
Since then the range of persons arrested has steadily widened. During January,
39 persons were detained and on March 21, Dogu Perincek, the former Maoist
leader of a militant small party and the staff of his newspaper were seized,
along with the 83-year old publisher of Cumhuriyet, Ilhan Selcuk, as well as a
former rector of Istanbul University. Selcuk's arrest provoked a media uproar
in Istanbul and he was fairly quickly released, but most of the other detainees
are still being held.
These latest arrests will provoke further questions about what lies behind the
authorities' actions.
Aygun, one of Ankara's main business leaders and head of the city's chamber of
commerce, one of Turkey's chief main civil society organizations, was reported
as saying while being led away that all he was being accused of was of loving
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic who made the country
into a secular state.
A prosecutor's blackout is in force on detailed press investigations into
Ergenekon and at least one paper was forced to drop an investigation it was
carrying out. It is thus difficult for the Turkish public to make any clear
assessment. The chief sources of information on Ergenekon are articles in
newspapers supporting the AKP government.
In Ankara there was speculation on Tuesday that Erdogan may have disclosed the
forthcoming arrests to the commander of the land forces, General Ilker Basbug,
at a lunch meeting between the two men last week held at the prime minister's
request.
With the constitutional court due to hear the AKP's defense against charges of
violating secularism in the next few days, news of the latest detentions
alarmed the markets. Shares fell on the Istanbul Stock Exchange to their lowest
level since March while the Turkish lira weakened against the US dollar and
other currencies.
David Barchard is a British historian and journalist who teaches at
Bilkent University in Ankara.
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