Turkey hems in its Islamist fringe
By Patrick Wrigley
ISTANBUL - Turkey is renewing efforts to crack down on its radical Islamist
fringe, even as the movement gains increasing grassroots support.
Security forces have been on high alert in 2009 and have conducted several
sweeps to round up suspected militants and radicals. The latest raids occurred
on July 24 when police arrested almost 200 alleged members of the group Hizb
ut-Tahrir during operations in 23 provinces across the country.
According to a police statement, two handguns, a Kalashnikov, four rifles, more
than 240 bullets and documents linking the suspects to Hizb ut-Tahrir were
discovered. The Islamic organization, which is legal in the United States and
the United
Kingdom, was outlawed as a terrorist outfit by a Turkish court in 2004.
Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in 1953 and came to Turkey in 1978 espousing its
global aims of establishing an Islamic caliphate and introducing sharia law.
According to Emrullah Uslu, an analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a
Washington-based think-tank, "It [Hizb ut-Tahrir] has only recently emerged as
a power in Turkey. Now it is starting to gain ground."
Uslu puts this down to two primary reasons: the group's advocacy of a
caliphate, which increasingly resonates with observant Turks' nostalgia for the
days of the Ottoman caliphate, and its deeply anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli
rhetoric, the populist tone of which is being appropriated to significant
effect.
Hizb ut-Tahrir argues that last month's arrests are "unjust" and contrary to
Turkey's democratic assertions. Taji Mustafa, the media representative of Hizb
ut-Tahrir in Britain, told Asia Times Online, "While Western governments
portray 'democratic' Turkey as a model state in the Muslim world, these arrests
of peaceful political activists show that it is no different to those Muslim
regimes who clamp down on [people] seeking peaceful Islamic political change;
change which enjoys widespread support and [which] is inevitable."
The arrests in Turkey came a matter of days before Hizb ut-Tahrir was to host a
conference on the caliphate in Istanbul. After media outrage following a police
decision to allow a Hizb ut-Tahrir demonstration to go ahead in 2005, many
analysts believe the arrests were aimed at preventing this conference from
going ahead.
The Islamist-orientated government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been keen to draw a strong
distinction between their policies and those of radical Islamists. The
government is fearful of a backlash from secularists and fully aware of the
1997 coup against a previous Islamist government, the Welfare Party, on similar
grounds. "The AKP is very afraid of being portrayed as a protector of radical
Islam in the country," said Uslu. "They are more committed against radical
Islam than [fighting] the PKK [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party]."
Some elements within the media have even suggested that Hizb ut-Tahrir has been
used by members of Ergenekon, a shadowy cabal of ultra-nationalists seeking to
foment unrest with the aim of unseating the current government. Writing in the
Turkish daily Zaman on August 3, Mustafa Turan and Mutlu Ozay argued,
"Ergenekon is known to have close links to a number of outlawed groups,
including the Turkish branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir ... According to the Ergenekon
indictment, Ergenekon leaders used terrorist organizations in Turkey from all
backgrounds, worldviews and political ideologies for their ultimate aim to
create chaos in the country which they hoped would make it easier to realize
their ultimate goal of triggering a military intervention."
The government and police are only too aware of the security threat posed by
radical Islamist groups. In November 2003, an al-Qaeda attack on two
synagogues, the HSBC Bank and the British consulate in Istanbul claimed the
lives of 57 people and wounded 700 others. Since then, the security forces have
been on alert and have carried out a number of operations against militant
groups. In April of this year, police detained 37 suspected al-Qaeda members in
raids in the Kurdish southeast of the country where radical Islamist groups
have gained the most support.
The southeast has also been a stronghold for the Islamist organization,
Hezbollah in Turkey (HiT), often dubbed Kurdish Hezbollah because of its
popularity among the Kurdish population in the region. HiT, which is unrelated
to its namesake in Lebanon, has rivaled the PKK as a rallying cause for Kurds
disaffected by the state. Indeed, the Islamist group conducted an ongoing war
against the PKK in the 1980s, killing suspected members in a bid for supremacy
in the southeast of the country. Since then, with logistical and financial
support from Iran, the organization has widened its operations by kidnapping
and killing prominent businessmen and opponents throughout the country.
The government remains wary of HiT and its enduring ability to garner support
among the Kurds. In 2006, HiT demonstrations in Diyarbakir, the unofficial
capital of the Kurds in southeast Turkey, attracted as many as 100,000 people,
one tenth the entire population of the city. Uslu believes that the success of
militant and radical Islamist groups in the southeast is attributable to both
the socio-political and cultural environment. He argues that, "It is easy to
reach out using religious rhetoric [as] people [in the region] consider Islam
as one of the key foundations of cultural and social life."
While Uslu argues that the police and security forces are doing well, he
concedes that "in terms of finding grassroots support, militant groups are
succeeding". This poses a significant political problem for the ruling party,
which has had a great deal of success in espousing its brand of moderate
Islamism since it came to power in 2002.
The AKP is worried about the erosion of support in the conservative,
predominantly Kurdish, southeast of the country, as well as a potential
backlash from secular elements within the country. As such, tackling radical
Islam remains high on the government's agenda.
Patrick Wrigley is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul. He writes
extensively on Turkey and the Middle East.
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