16 international NGOs urged Turkish Government not to discriminate against political prisoners in its forthcoming early parole bill.

The Arrested Lawyers Initiative, European Federation of Journalists, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, Foundation of Day of the Endangered Lawyers, Freemuse Association, International Association of People’s Lawyers, International Observatory of Human Rights, International Federation of Journalists, Italian Federation for Human Rights, Lawyers for Lawyers, Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, Liga voor de Rechten van de Mens, Platform for Peace and Justice, Social Justice Advocacy Campaign, Open Dialogue Foundation, Media and Law Studies Association made a joint written statement to cal on the Government of Turkey to ensure that:

i. Release measures include and do not exempt the release of political prisoners, particularly lawyers, journalists, politicians, artists, judges and prosecutors, human rights defenders and and others arbitrarily detained during the purge under emergency measures (2016-2018);

ii. Prisoners who are older, sick, disabled and with children are released first; and,

iii. All releases take place on an urgent basis.

The historic local elections of 31^st March, which were sort of a referendum on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule, did not really work out for him to say the least. In fact, they were a major setback for him. Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) did not win a majority in Ankara for the first time since the party’s founding in 2001. To top it all off, the AKP surprisingly lost Istanbul to the opposition, namely, Ekrem İmamoğlu and the Republican People’s Party (CHP). The elections were supposed to be an important turning point in proving that a democracy could truly be possible in Turkey at a time where the country seems to be moving closer to a dictatorship. However, the 31^st March elections have not been the turning point that everybody expected them to be.

The battle for Istanbul

Erdoğan famously stated that “whoever loses Istanbul, loses Turkey”, inferring that Istanbul is the key to controlling Turkey. Istanbul’s importance lies in the fact that it is not only three times the size of the capital, but it is also the city where Erdoğan launched his political career and served as a mayor in the 1990s. And let’s not forget that 15 percent of Turkey’s 57 million voters – who account for 31 percent of its GDP – are located in the city.

Losing Istanbul, and thus, losing Turkey is exactly what happened to Erdoğan. Ironic? Maybe, because Erdoğan does not plan on accepting his defeat so easily: the so-called battle for Istanbul will be held on the 23^rd of June 2019. On this day, a mayoral re-election will take place in Istanbul after Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Board cancelled the city’s first election result on 6^th May. With this decision, the Supreme Electoral Board– has reduced itself to an instrument of Erdoğan and the AKP.

Electoral fraud, conspiracies and complots

In the wake of the election, the AKP had already plastered the streets of Istanbul with victory banners featuring Erdoğan and Yildirim. This blunder may raise questions about the AKP’s motivation to re-do the election: perhaps they are disappointed with the outcome and truly believe that their candidate would be the best mayor of Istanbul.

The AKP and its allies believe that the outcome of the 31^st March elections was due to electoral “irregularities” rather than the Turkish citizens’ discontentment with the nationalist course the AKP has embarked on in recent years as well as the economic recession following last year’s collapse of the Lira. As a consequence of the economic recession, Turkish citizens experienced a major drop in standards of living, and their aggrievement is clear in the 31^st March result. It is also important to add that the local nature of the elections meant that Turkish citizens living abroad were not able to cast a vote. Many commentators have posited that significant chunk of Erdoğan’s support comes from the Turkish international diaspora and perhaps, the AKP’s losses on 31^st March are reflective of the negative effects of Erdoğan’s rule felt by Turkish people “on the ground”.

However, typical of modern Turkish politics, there were fears of conspiracy and complot. Whilst the opposition is accusing the Supreme Electoral Board of “betrayal”, more controversially, Erdoğan is making claims that Istanbul’s mayoral election was affected by “organised crime and serious corruption”. He also stated that “dark circles, economic saboteurs and so-called elitists” colluded to “rob the nation of its will”.

More concretely, the AKP claims that 11,000 voters illegally registered to vote in the city’s suburb of Büyükçekmece in order to cast their vote in the Istanbul election. Indeed, given that İmamoğlu won by a thin 13,000-vote margin, if the Büyükçekmece claims are true, then the 31st March elections truly took place under undemocratic pretences. If, however, on the 23^rd of June the same result is achieved, Erdoğan and its AKP party will have to accept that the elections were free and that there were no acts of fraud.

Strenghtening a non-existant democracy

Erdoğan asserts that the re-do will strengthen democracy. Unfortunately, the question arises as to how plausible Turkey’s democracy is today and, given that it has been tainted already, whether a re-election is the right way of strengthening democracy. One could argue that, at present, there is no real democracy in Turkey, and thus one cannot strengthen something that is not even there.

Even in the context of the latest elections, the democratic landscape is questionable. In January 2019, an unpublished report by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality allegedly detailed how millions of Turkish Lira had been transferred from the municipality to foundations headed by Erdoğan’s family members and other pro-government organisations. Indeed, it may be argued that the foundations are non-political and such municipal grants are standard procedure, however, in light of other anti-pluralist measures, these transfers perhaps need further investigation.

Press and human rights organisations around the world have recognised that approximately 80% of Turkish media is affiliated with the state and that outlets or journalists critical of Erdoğan and the AKP are quickly shut down. In a comment on the surprise pro-government media outlets must have felt following the 31^st March results, Ahval labels the AKP media machine “well-heeled and well-oiled”. Even CNN’s Turkish channel was criticised for not giving fair coverage to candidates from all parties and becoming just another cog in the AKP’s apparatus.

Indeed, a true democracy is difficult – if not, impossible – to achieve. However, a country claiming to operate under democratic principles ought to be transparent in its finances and allow for a free, open and pluralist media backdrop. It has been widely accepted for a while now that the Turkish government has shown growing contempt for political rights and civil liberties in recent years, perpetrating serious abuses in areas such as minority rights, freedom of expression, associational rights and the rule of law. After the attempted coup the situation deteriorated further: just separation of power has been dissipated by constitutional changes that have concentrated power in the hands of the president.

Democracy in Turkey has been absent for a while and thus, Erdoğan stating that he wants to “strengthen democracy” is meaningless. Indeed, the only annulled election results were those in Istanbul, which proves that Erdoğan is not planning on strengthening democracy but simply wants the most important city for himself again instead of letting democracy speak for itself. If the 31^st March elections are to be held again in order to truly “strengthen democracy”, then the results in every municipality would have to be nullified, Erdoğan and the AKP would have to surrender powers and the entire political landscape of Turkey would have to be overhauled.

Turkey’s scoreboard of massive human rights violations looks ever worst even after two and a half year since the failed coup. Once a promising EU candidate and rising star of the NATO alliance, Turkey now moves away from the West under the rule of Erdogan-Eurasianists alliance.

While a huge purge of Gulenists and other dissidents from the state institutions including the universities, the army and the judiciary is still on the Alliance’s agenda, no basic principles of the rule of law and universal human rights program are being respected. More than 150.000 public servants have been dismissed under the State of Emergency Rule without due process. Thousands of academics, judges and pro-Western bureaucrats are among them. Those who replace them are either loyalists of the ruling party or the Eurasianists.

The changing character of the state cadres results in more and more polarization as well as the gravest human rights violations in the history of the country as the Alliance seeks the consolidation of his power in silencing and terminating all opposing fractions. Even the most innocent oppositions like activists of children’s rights and women rights are struggling to survive in the despotic environment of the country.

Under normal circumstances, media is the best friend of those who pursue protection of the human rights but that is not the case now as the abovementioned notorious alliance of Turkey first suppressed the critical media starting even before the failed coup. Currently, other than one or two small media outlets and some internet-based platforms, all major TV channels and newspapers are under the control of the Alliance. With more than 150 media workers behind bars, Turkey is the leading jailer of journalists. In addition, hundreds of journalists struggle with prosecutions against them and attacks from government officials and pro-government thugs. The takeover of Cumhuriyet by the ultranationalists with the support of the government is the final nail on the coffin of free media.

Not only journalists but also members of opposition parties face imprisonments. Especially, scores of leading figures of pro-Kurdish HDP including Selahattin Demirtas the former co-chair of the party are held in jail by obviously government-controlled courts. Demirtas has not been released even after the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that his imprisonment constitutes several rights violations including rarely resorted 18th Article of the Convention. Dozens of other MP’s and mayors of HDP are condemned to long jail sentences simply because the party threatens the one-party rule of AKP by passing the election threshold.

The ruling alliance of the country makes use of the chaos emanating from the Syrian war against the European countries and the US. On the one hand, the political situation in the region prevents the US to further pressurize the government to end the rights violations. Instead, the US raises its voice against issues like Turkey’s purchasing Russian S-400. Keeping the refugee flow beyond its border for the EU is still a priority on the other hand. Although progress reports of the EU clearly record the decline of democracy in Turkey, no actual step that can urge the Turkish government to change its course of handling the opposing voices has been taken. Within this chaotic environment, the notorious alliance enjoys the appeasement policy of the international community which avoids further chaos and remains committed to protect political interests of their own. The most striking example to the appeasement policy is ECtHR’s rulings against the appeals of the dismissed public servants. In contradiction with its established practices, the Strasbourg Court rejected tens of thousands of files to avoid the wrath of the Turkish government as it is already in a conflict with Russia. Despite the increasing criticisms, the Court has not changed its attitude towards Turkish cases which leaves hundreds of thousands of families helpless against the massive purge.

Worsening situation of the country resulted also in a massive brain drain and flow of Turkish migrants into Europe. Many dissidents flee Turkey to Europe and the US in order to escape from the waves of persecution. A growing diaspora of Turkish dissidents is forming its own platforms and institutions in and around Western capitals, particularly in Washington, Brussels and Berlin. The long arm of the Turkish government tries to silence them too. In the future, the diaspora’s activities to raise further awareness about the rights violations and demolition of democratic institutions in Turkey will likely be among the sources of dispute between European countries and Ankara.

No real solution is on the horizon as the international community does not/cannot weigh on the human rights issue in relations with Turkey either because of the refugee issue or its geostrategic importance. Obviously, the ruling powers of Turkey playing well their cards against the US and Europe by threatening them to leave the Western alliance and take its place in the pact led by Russia and China.

Turkey has been going through a catastrophic period since the Gezi protests in June 2013 and launch of a corruption probe into President Erdogan’s family and members of his cabinet in December of the same year. Erdogan has violently stopped the protests and blatantly obstructed the probe. Afterwards, he transformed the judiciary into an extension of the government rather than an independent body and has started to spread instability in the region and in Europe, where Erdogan’s henchmen pursue those who seek refuge from his government. To avoid being impeached, Erdogan made Turkey’s notorious ultranationalists, who have deep roots within the state apparatus including the army and judiciary, his new allies. The alliance has been punishing opponents by means of the judiciary. Amnesty Turkey’s chair Taner Kılıç and well-known philanthropist Osman Kavala were put in jail. The former has been released following a more than one year jail term while the latter still is in prison even without an indictment presented against him. Murat Arslan, head of the now dissolved Association of Judges and Prosecutors, has been in jail since October 2016; PACE awarded him the Havel Vaclav Human Rights Prize in 2017. He has recently been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Selahattin Demirtas, former co-chair of Turkey’s third biggest party, has been in jail since the late 2016 alongside dozens of members of his party. Recently, The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Demirtas’s long pre-trial detention is violation of several articles of the Convention. However, Turkey’s Erdogan immediately defied the Court’s decision saying “The decision is not binding. We will make a counter move”. What Erdogan meant by “counter move” was again a part of his play with the courts of the country. An appeal court hastily approved 4 years 8 months jail sentence for Demirtas which has voided the ECtHR decision. Because the ECtHR ruled on his pretrial detention but now he has become a convicted person. This is how it works in Turkey of Erdogan-Ultranationalists alliance.

Erdogan and the Ultranationalists are the two major players currently holding the power over the judiciary. To eliminate their opponents, mainly pro-Western bureaucrats and civil society actors, this alliance first introduced ‘Criminal Peace Justices’ – designed as a kind of ‘closed circuit’  structure to decide arrest and confiscation issues. These courts began their duties in July 2014. Events and public statements by Erdogan indicate that these courts have been created, staffed and instructed by the executive. Legal experts and international bodies such as the Venice Commission criticize them for violating the principles of natural justice.

The biggest attack on the judiciary came the day after the coup attempt of July 15, 2016: arrest warrants were issued for 2,745 judges and prosecutors. Nearly 5000 judges have been dismissed and almost 2500 of them were imprisoned, including hundreds of members of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. Judges who have ruled against the government are relocated against their wishes, dismissed, or jailed.

By means of the State of Emergency Decree Laws, over 150,000 public servants were dismissed, including Gülenists, idealist bureaucrats, leftists, and Kurdish dissidents and Academics for Peace. Dismissed public servants are condemned to ‘civil death’ by banning their employment in the private sector and cancelling their passports. Although the State of Emergency was lifted in June 2018, restrictions brought by it still continue,

Nearly 60 detainees have committed suicide under custody; many claim that those were extrajudicial killings. The Turkish secret service has kidnapped and tortured more than a dozen people. Families of victims have identified individuals and cars involved in these disappearances, but the authorities refuse to investigate. The kidnappings and torture in Kurdish cities which characterized the 1990s have returned. Government forces have also destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of Kurdish citizens in the ‘fight against terror.’

Those who lost their jobs cannot pursue their rights because legal remedies are blocked by emergency decrees. The European Court of Human Rights has disappointed victims by returning nearly 30,000 files, referring them to a sham commission incapable of providing recourse. Within 18 months, the Commission has reviewed 30% of the 125.000 applicants and only 2300 of them have been reinstated to their jobs. More than 80.000 dismissed public servants are still awaiting response from the non-independent and ineffective commission. Victims of the Turkish witch hunt are being consigned to civil death by both the Turkish courts and the ECHR.

As a result of the lack of opportunity to pursue their rights in Turkey and before the ECHR, Turkish citizens are fleeing to Europe. Thousands have fled via Greece to European countries, seeking asylum. If the arbitrary and grave human rights violations do not cease in the near future, Turkey will become another Syria, spreading instability in the Middle East and Europe.

About The Author

Bill Park

Bill Park is Visiting Research Fellow in the Defence Studies Department, King’s College, London. He serves as a council member for the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), is an editorial board member for the journal Mediterranean Politics, sits on the international advisory panel for the journal Turkish Studies, and is an advisor to the Centre for Turkish Studies (CEFTUS). He was Visiting Scholar at TOBB-ET University in Ankara January-April 2016. Among his publications are his book ‘Modern Turkey: People, State and Foreign Policy in a Globalized World’, published by Routledge in 2012 and numerous journal articles and blogs. He is frequently consulted on Turkish politics by government departments, parliamentary committees and others, and has also been used by various media outlets as a Turkey expert.

On 12 December Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkish forces would within days launch an offensive aimed at clearing northern Syria east of the Euphrates from separatist terrorists eg the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

In recognition of the presence of US forces in the area, he added that ‘our target is never US soldiers’. Erdogan also dismissed claims that an IS threat persisted in Syria as a ‘fantasy’.

There were reports in Turkey of troop movements towards the border, and of sections of the border wall being removed. A spokesman for the Turkish-backed umbrella group of rebels, the so-called National Army, declared that it would contribute to the Turkish offensive. Recent weeks have featured a number of incidents of cross border fire against the YPG from across the Turkish border. Within a few days, and perhaps to reinforce the message, Turkish planes launched bombing raids against PKK targets in Sinjar and Makhmur in northern Iraq. Should an offensive into eastern Syria go ahead, Arab majority areas such as Tal Abyad, and border locations such as Kobane, would appear to be particularly vulnerable, although some have doubted that Turkey has sufficient forces in the area to move far beyond the border. At the same time, it is not a foregone conclusion that US and other western forces in the area could offer much resistance, should it come to that.

Washington was clearly rattled. A Pentagon spokesman said that ‘unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as US personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern’, and that any such attack would be ‘unacceptable’.

The US reiterated that it regarded the YPG as a ‘committed partner’ in the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Syria, and that any attack on it would detract from the struggle against IS, as allegedly happened following Turkey’s invasion of Afrin in January 2018.

In fact the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has for weeks been conducting a difficult and bloody campaign against the IS-held town of Hafrin, in Deir-ez-Zor province on the banks of the Euphrates near the Iraqi border, where the US estimates that up to 2000 IS fighters are located. As Erdogan spoke, it was on the very verge of victory.

The region east of the Euphrates is mainly in the hands of the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), although there have been occasional clashes in the region with regime forces.

There are reckoned to be at least 2000 US and a few hundred French military personnel there, and possibly some UK Special Forces too. The SDF-controlled area in eastern Syria, centred on the largely Kurdish-inhabited towns of Hasakah and Qamishli but also including the now highly symbolic town of Kobane, is the jewel in the crown of the Kurdish-dominated but multi-ethnic Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), formerly known as Rojava.

The DFNS’s western outpost, Afrin, was taken from the YPG by Turkish-led forces in early 2018, although the YPG is conducting an irregular campaign against the Turkish presence there. The region east of the Euphrates was largely acquired by the YPG, with US assistance, during 2014 and 2015, in the aftermath of the US-assisted lifting of the IS siege of Kobane, a battle which Turkey was content to passively observe. It has since emerged as more stable than many other parts of Syria, and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, has been steadily building a Kurdish self-governing entity based on Abdullah Ocalan’s principles of ‘democratic confederalism’.

Given the YPG’s links to the PKK, these developments are seen in Turkey as an existential threat. The introduction of joint US-YPG patrols along the Syrian border with Turkey, and the still more recent establishment of five US border observation posts, have generally been interpreted by Ankara as aimed at protecting the Syrian Kurds from Turkish attacks, notwithstanding some quite woolly denials from the Pentagon. Washington’s recently-announced programme to train up to 40000 SDF soldiers, a force which it has in any case been arming and training for years, has further provoked Ankara, which regards it as a strengthening of the PKK.

With the construction of around a dozen US bases in the region, and increasing talk in Washington of a long stay both to combat Iranian influence in Syria and to ensure a role in any Syrian peace process, Turkey fears that the US-YPG collaboration might endure for some time, which could provide an umbrella beneath which the Kurds can consolidate their self-governing entity along eastern Syria’s border with Turkey– and with some of its predominantly Kurdish inhabited areas – as well as with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).

Even so, eastern Syria is not Afrin. In addition to the western presence there, any Turkish infringement will not occur in the context of a green light from Moscow, as was the case in Afrin.

Furthermore, YPG forces are far more entrenched than was the case in its western outpost. Indeed, some interpreted Erdogan’s escalation of the rhetoric in the context of the local elections due in Turkey at the end of March, in the expectation of tapping into nationalist sentiment. Such behaviour on Erdogan’s part is familiar.

On the other hand, Turkey did conduct offensives both in Afrin and, before that, towards Jarablus and Aziz, in order to prevent the YPG’s establishment of a contiguous zone of control along northern Syria’s border with Turkey.

Furthermore, the Afrin operation was preceded by Turkish cross-fire attacks similar to those that have recently taken place east of the Euphrates.

It seems too that Turkey has conducted clandestine operations in eastern Syria, and has sought to recruit local non-Kurdish forces. In any case, it is hard to square the ferocity of Ankara’s rhetoric against the Kurdish-run entity in eastern Syria with an unending passivity towards its existence.

Erdogan has often cried wolf, and has indeed threatened military action against the YPG in eastern Syria before, but he has also shown himself capable of seemingly reckless risk-taking.

There can be no doubt that Ankara is very frustrated with the US in Syria and with the relationship it has established with the YPG. In recent months this tension has mainly manifested itself in Manbij, a multi-ethnic town just west of the Euphrates that was taken from IS by the SDF in a fierce fight during the summer of 2016.

It forms part of the DFNS, and serves as a hub for US-led coalition training of YPG forces. Much of Ankara’s resentment at the US-YPG alliance has focused on Manbij, which has been constantly threatened by Turkey-backed rebel forces.

In June 2018 the US and Turkey agreed a ‘road map’ which Ankara hoped would lead to the removal of all Kurdish forces in the town and in due course hand its security over to the US and Turkey. In fact the largely Arab Manbij Military Council (MMC) has governed Manbij since 2016, but Turkey has continued to insist that Kurds hold the upper hand in practice. Such was the distrust between the two NATO allies that joint US-Turkish patrols on the edge of the city did not get under way until November 2018, with the US continuing to deny that Turkish forces would be allowed into the town itself. Ankara’s dissatisfaction has not been appeased, and it maintains that the YPG presence in Manbij has not ended. In fact November saw a number of attacks by Turkey-backed forces on MMC military positions, some of them in locations close to the US-Turkey patrols. There is as yet little sign that Ankara trusts the US in Manbij, notwithstanding American reassurances.

Even if once can sympathise with Ankara’s apprehension at Kurdish gains in Syria, it is unclear what Erdogan hopes to gain by annoying Washington or quite what it intends to do with the Syrian territories in which it is already present, Idlib and Afrin.

If it hopes to wean Washington away from the PYG and towards itself, it will need to demonstrate more enthusiasm for the battle against IS than it has thus far manifested. And it will need too to present itself as more reliable partner than it seems bent on doing, given the range of difficulties currently confronting the Ankara-Washington relationship.

Furthermore, it is far from clear that Turkey would benefit from a US withdrawal from Syria. It would leave the field open to Iran and Russia – and Moscow too has frequently expressed a preference for Kurdish involvement in any Syrian peace process and even for a federal solution. And it would leave Turkish forces in Idlib and Afrin as the only substantial foreign forces whose presence is rejected by Damascus. Turkish objectives, in so far as they are though through at all, remain opaque, while the potential consequences of its behaviour could be dire.

About The Author

Philip Bernard Kowalski

Philip Kowalski is an US based researcher, did his postgraduate degree at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, where he studied Kurdish history. He previously lived in Turkey from 2012-2016, during which he traveled extensively across Turkey, the Kurdish southeast, and the Syrian-Turkish border, where he witnessed the rise and fall of the peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK.

The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by hitmen closely associated with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has stirred up feelings of horror and anger toward Saudi Arabia in a way that has little precedent.

President Trump, due to his family’s barely concealed financial love affair with the royal family, has been reluctant to criticize MBS in any meaningful way, other prominent American politicians have broken with their habit of slavishly defending the Kingdom and expressed outrage at the brutal extrajudicial killing.

Fanning the flames has been an unreticent Erdoğan, who has leaked information in a manner that has been extremely effective in inciting anger toward Saudi Arabia – the purpose being so that he can shore up badly needed American and European support for an increasingly isolated Turkey.

With Erdoğan’s efforts to feign horror at the killing of a journalist seemingly paying off, it is now more important than ever to keep in mind that Turkey under Erdoğan has become one of the world’s most dangerous places to be a journalist.

The documented numbers alone speak volumes at precisely how dangerous the business of journalism is in Turkey.  According to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a total of one third of the world’s imprisoned journalists are in Turkey alone – a statistic which is all the more sinister when one considers that other countries hostile to journalists, such as China, have significantly higher populations than Turkey.

Moreover, the vast majority of those journalists who are imprisoned have yet to receive a trial, a practice of the Turkish judiciary branch that has been intensified under Erdoğan, particularly in the wake of the failed coup attempt in July of 2016.

While Turkey has never been a particularly safe place to be a journalist, Erdoğan has taken what was already in a reprehensible state and worsened it exponentially.

Those who do end up facing trail cannot consider themselves any luckier.  One of the most disturbing sentences in post-coup Turkey was that of Ahmet Altan, a prolific author whose political activism has made him no stranger to censorship.

Under ludicrous and utterly unsubstantiated charges of aiding the July 2016 coup attempt, Altan was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year.

Altan described the Kafkaesque nature of his trial in characteristically lucid prose; “While the defendants and their lawyers speak, the chubby, skew-eyed judge to the chief’s right leans back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling.

The lines of pleasure moving across his face suggest he is daydreaming. When he doesn’t seem to be daydreaming he leans his head on his hand and sleeps.

The judge on the left busies himself with the computer in front of him, continuously reading something…The chief judge, the one with eyes hidden beneath swollen eyelids, reads the decision: “Life without parole.”  Of course, everyone including Erdoğan knows that Ahmet Altan had nothing to do with the coup attempt – he has simply been imprisoned because he is an inconvenient and outspoken critic of Erdoğan – much like Jamal Khashoggi was to Mohammad Bin Salman.

That Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in an extra-judicial manner is not exceptional within Turkey’s borders.  Under Erdoğan, the murder or attempted murder of journalists has been a disconcertingly common occurrence.

Can Dündar, one of Turkey’s bravest and most prolific dissident journalists, has managed to weather just about any act of retaliation – be it judiciary or physical – which Erdoğan has thrown at him.

Initially earning the ire of Erdoğan due to his extensive coverage of the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, Dündar narrowly escaped a lifetime prison sentence for uncovering a shipment of weapons from the Turkish state that were slated to cross the border into Syria and into the hands of ISIS and Al-Nusra Front, who were conveniently fighting the Kurds at the time.

Following the 2016 Coup Attempt, Erdoğan once again prosecuted Dündar on trumped up charges, but perhaps fearing that Dündar was too prolific to be imprisoned without an international outcry, sent a would-be assassin to silence him in a way that the court had been unable to do.

Dündar escaped with his life and has since fled Turkey, but considering that Erdoğan has not hesitated to assassinate his critics abroad, Dündar must remain vigilant if he wishes to avoid the fate of critics such as Khashoggi.

Serena Shim, an American journalist, was not as fortunate as Dündar. Shim courageously reported on the ground from the Turkish-Syrian border during the siege of Kobani in late 2014, when ISIS and the Kurdish YPG were engaged in a months-long siege that was, after a harrowing victory by the YPG, the beginning of the end for ISIS.

Much like Dündar, Shim was unafraid to investigate into the appallingly obvious signs that the Turkish state was shipping weapons to ISIS under the guise of humanitarian aid trucks.  Fearing an international outcry, MIT, the Turkish intelligence agency, threatened Shim with charges of spying, and two days later, Shim was dead following a suspicious car crash that the Turkish state has, to this day, refused to investigate.

One could continue with many more paragraphs detailing the abuse, murder, or state negligence of journalists in Turkey.

There is Rohat Aktaş, a Kurdish journalist who was mysteriously shot and killed during a series of reprisals against Kurdish civilians in the city of Cizre in early 2016.  Or take the infamous 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist who was unafraid to speak of the Armenian Genocide and was murdered by nationalists with tacit support from the local police as a result.

Indeed, the harrowing state of the safety of journalists in Turkey is a thoroughly depressing affair with no prospect of improvement on the horizon.

Given the incredibly hostile atmosphere that Erdoğan has fostered, is it any wonder that Mohammad Bin Salman chose Turkey as the country in which to commit his brutal act?  For Erdoğan to take up the mantle of seeking justice for a murdered journalist is an egregious offense to the memory of Jamal Khashoggi, and an insult to those who have watched as Turkey continues its path on the long and lonely road of being the world’s most hostile country to journalists.

About The Author

Anthony Derisiotis

Dr Anthony Derisiotis is a lecturer of Turkey and the Middle East, at the Department of Turkish and Modern Asian studies, of the National and Capodistrian University of Athens. He has graduated from the Department of Turkish Studies of the University of Cyprus and got his MA and PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. He teaches Turkish political history and foreign policy. His publications and research interests include Turkish domestic and foreign politics, with a special focus in the Middle East and the United States, as well as the Kurdish issue. He has previously held a research associate position at the Hellenic House of Parliament.

The end of the Cold War marked a dramatic change in the global strategic parameters, which affected Turkey’s role in the post-Cold War era, while the Russian Federation rose as a new actor in world politics, inheriting the role of the successor of the Soviet Union.

Following the 1990s standstill in their bilateral relations, Turkey and the Russian Federation started converging[1], gradually improving their relations, with trade and economic cooperation being the points of reference. The warmth in their relations was ratified by the exchange of Head of State official visits, President Putin’s to Ankara in 2004 and PM Erdoğan’s to Moscow in early 2005.

Turkey has seen a long series of changes within the last 16 years, a substantial amount of which have been about its foreign politics and a large part of this is associated with the Russian Federation and the strong economic, diplomatic and political links that were established between the two countries during the first decade of the new millennium. The foundation of this relationship has been their trade partnership, with special focus on energy.

However, this is only the one side of the relationship. Turkey’s growing dependency on Russian energy has been -and still is- a useful political tool for Moscow, which is clearly interested in maintaining close ties with Ankara, especially at a time that President Erdoğan’s government pursued a more independent foreign policy, regardless if the country lacks the political weight to support it, especially in such a sensitive and volatile area like the Middle East. Furthermore, Turkey has established a status of an influential player in the Middle East and it is highly beneficial for Moscow to remain in a close partnership, in order to exert its influence in the region.

However, this relationship that is often been referred to as a strategic partnership, is far less than it seems. As the war in Syria is closing to its end, Turkey’s partnership does not seem to solidify, in contrast to the other strategic players in the area.

The Damascus-Moscow-Tehran axis is determined to gain control of Idlib and the USA-PYD/YPG alliance remains strong in Rojava[2]. Turkey, however, is still in a sui generis policy, in favour of a political instead of a military solution, for two reasons: a. to prevent another refugee influx to its sovereignty[3] and b. to provide some protection to the elements of the rebel forces that are loyal to Ankara; the two reasons that the Turkish government has been trying hard the last few weeks to persuade Russia not to proceed with a military offensive and rather unexpectedly succeeded on the 17^th of September.

Additionally, Turkey remains adamant on an “Assad-free” post-war Syria, whereas Russia and Iran are on the opposite side; Moscow has actually been lobbying with the West -rather successfully so far- to de-prioritise a political transition from Assad, directing the world’s focus for post-war Syria on humanitarian aid, reconstruction and eventually the return of the refugees.

The Idlib case, up until the 17^th of September, has been testing the Turkish-Russian relation, raising questions on the balance between the two strategic partners and common understanding of each other’s sensitive interests.

The Erdoğan-Putin agreement in Sochi adds a new perspective, since it has positive effects for all the players actively involved in Idlib. It is a small victory for Turkey as well as a victory for the civilian population of the province. It is also a fitting development for Europe, since no offensive means there won’t be a mass exodus of refugees heading for Europe. Even for Russia it is a small victory since it can distance itself from its pro-offensive hard-line rhetoric of the past weeks and present itself as willing to move towards non-military solutions.

Last but not least, it is a positive development for the rebel forces, who were preparing to fight a battle they were bound to lose. That is, of course, if the agreement works.

Turkey’s foreign policy, which has been dominated by president Erdoğan since Ahmet Davutoğlu was forced to exit the government in 2016, has brought Turkey in a rather difficult position. Its traditional allies, that is the USA and Europe, are -at the very least- suspicious of Ankara’s relations with Russia and its “hostage diplomacy” towards western citizens in its sovereignty.

Washington’s recent economic offensive on Turkey has aggravated the country’s serious economic trouble, while the two leaders’ aggressive rhetoric has brought their bilateral relation to the limits of dysfunctional. Clearly, the Andrew Brunson case was just the spring for Washington to apply strong pressure on Turkey, as their relation has been seriously downgraded in recent years, due to a number of other causes, including the Ankara-Moscow close relations and their S-400 air defence missile system, its relations to Iran, the war in Syria, the PYD Kurds and Ankara’s support for radical elements of the Syrian rebel forces. That left Turkey with very limited potential support for its interests within the international diplomacy.

As the offensive in Idlib has ceased, in the wake of the Sochi agreement, Ankara still needs to address the big picture in its relations with Russia. The Sochi agreement is delaying the inevitable, which is that the Russian-Turkish bilateral relation will, eventually, get stripped of this cloak of “political convergence” in Syria that has been covering the fact that the two states have different interests and view post-war Syria from a different perspectives.

The bilateral relation will be reduced to the very successful trade partnership, from which it all started and Ankara will have to settle with a new reality in its south borders, where Damascus controls the west part and the PYD/US alliance controls the east, presenting president Erdoğan with a tough choice: either isolation or a radical change of policy that will include serious concessions, such as accepting that the Assad regime is there to stay, or that the PYD in Rojava is a legitimate neighbor. What remains to be seen is whether Ankara returns to more US-friendly choices in its foreign policy, or it pursues a new political understanding with Moscow.

[1] The improvement in their relations did not occur without problems. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, areas like the Caucasus and Central Asia that belong to Moscow’s sphere of influence but also of cultural and historical importance for Turkey, became areas of competition.

[2] The USA have stated that they will not get actively involved in Idlib, unless there is a chemical weapons attack.

[3] Estimates of 700.000 refugees getting displaced by the offensive in Idlib are causing serious worries both in Turkey and in Europe. ]]> 3577 https://platformpj.org/interview-matthias-zimmer-cdu-warum-nicht-auch-eine-freie-turkische-universitat-in-deutschland/ Sun, 09 Sep 2018 11:49:23 +0000 https://platformpj.org/?p=3561  

Prof. Dr. Matthias Zimmer (CDU) ist seit Oktober 2009 Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages. Er ist ordentliches Mitglied in den Ausschüssen „Arbeit und Soziales“ und „Menschenrechte und humanitäre Hilfe“. Für letzteres hatte Matthias Zimmer 2017 die Funktion des Vorsitzenden inne.

PPJ interviewte den Bundestagabgeordneten Prof. Dr. Matthias Zimmer zu den Themen Menschenrechte, Türkei und Integration von Geflüchteten…

H.A: Aus den Fällen von Deniz Yücel und Pastor Brunson ist ersichtlich, dass Erdogan eine Geisel Diplomatie (Hostage Diplomacy) praktiziert. Wie müsste die internationale Öffentlichkeit darauf reagieren?
M.Z: Indem wir zum einen immer wieder an die Geiseln erinnern und zum anderen dieses Thema immer wieder in den Gesprächen mit der Türkei ansprechen. Es muss deutlich werden: Wir wissen, was da passiert und wir werden die Opfer nicht vergessen.

H.A: Nach dem Putschversuch vom 15. Juli 2016 haben viele Akademiker und Hochschulabsolventen mit türkischer Staatsangehörigkeit in Deutschland Asyl beantragt. Was muss man bei der Integration dieser Flüchtlinge in Deutschland beachten?
M.Z: Hier stellt sich uns eine ganz andere Aufgabe: Es muss darum gehen, die Qualifikationen der hochqualifizierten Flüchtlinge zu erhalten und sie auch hier einzusetzen. Meine Lieblingsidee in diesem Zusammenhang: Eine türkische Exiluniversität. Als in Berlin die Kommunisten 1947 die Humboldt-Universität gleichgeschaltet haben, wurde die Freie Universität gegründet. Warum nicht auch eine Freie Türkische Universität in Deutschland?

H.A: Sie waren bis 2017 der Vorsitzende des Ausschuss für Menschenrechte und humanitäre Hilfe im Deutschen Bundestag. Wie bewerten Sie die politische Haltung der Bundesregierung und der demokratischen Staaten im Westen in Bezug auf Menschenrechtsverletzungen in den restlichen Ländern der Welt? Wie müsste das Gleichgewicht zwischen politischen Interessen und universellen Menschenrechten ausbalanciert werden?
M.Z: Das ist immer ein Spagat, aber ich bin nicht der Meinung, dass sich nationale Interessen und Menschenrechte ausschließen. Eine außenpolitische Umgebung, in der die Menschenrechte geachtet werden, liegt eben auch in unserem nationalen Interesse. John Rawls hat hierzu das Notwendige in seinem Buch über das “Recht der Völker” geschrieben.

H.A: Glauben Sie, dass die türkische Regierung die in Deutschland lebenden Türken stetig zur Manipulation der deutschen Innenpolitik missbraucht? Wie beurteilen Sie den Einfluss der türkischen Regierung in Bezug auf die Integration der in Deutschland lebenden türkischstämmigen Mitmenschen?
M.Z: Die Tatsache, dass viele türkische bzw. türkischstämmige Einwohner in Deutschland aufgrund ihrer Staatsangehörigkeit das Wahlrecht in der Türkei besitzen führt dazu, dass türkische Wahlkämpfe auch in Deutschland stattfinden. Zu einer Manipulation gehören allerdings immer zwei, d.h. man muss sich auch manipulieren lassen. Inwieweit dies auf einzelne zutrifft, mag ich nicht zu beurteilen. Ein Problem besteht sicherlich bei Menschen, die bei uns leben, unsere Freiheitsrechte genießen, aber gleichzeitig autokratische Werte der derzeitigen türkischen Regierung vertreten.

H.A: Laut einigen Nachrichtenberichten, hätten die türkischen Parteien AKP und MHP sich geeinigt, erneut die Todesstrafe für Terrorstraftäter einzuführen. Diese Gespräche sind derzeit als innerparteiliche Verhandlungen in die Medien gesickert. Wie kommentieren Sie dieses Vorhaben?
M.Z: Ich kommentiere keine Gerüchte. Die EU hat aber klar gemacht, dass die Einführung der Todesstrafe in der Türkei eine rote Linie ist. Wird sie überschritten, finden die Beitrittsgespräche zur EU ein Ende. Das gilt nach wie vor.

H.A:Oppositioneller und Präsidentschaftskandidat Selahattin Demirtas (HDP) sitzt seit knapp zwei Jahren in Haft. Wie bewerten Sie dies und die Haltung der Bundesregierung zum türkisch-kurdischen Konflikt in der Türkei?
M.Z: Als überzeugter Demokrat verurteile ich grundsätzlich, wenn Menschen nur aufgrund ihrer politischen Einstellung inhaftiert sind. Allerdings kenne ich nicht die genauen Hintergründe des Falls. Was mich aber bewegt ist, dass sich die derzeitige türkische Regierung immer weiter von rechtsstaatlichen Grundsätzen entfernt. Auch innerstaatliche Konflikte lassen sich am besten in einem funktionierenden Rechtsstaat lösen.

After the Gezi protests in June 2013, Turkey’s strong man President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has changed his path from democracy to an authoritarian rule. Since then, Mr. Erdogan has been gradually consolidating his power. To this end, he has silenced the free press, intimidated the opponents, dismissed more than 130,000 public servants, and put around 60 thousands dissidents in jail, including journalists and academics. Currently, Turkey is jailing more journalists than any other nation.

In order to establish his authoritarian rule in a country which has been an EU candidate, a member of the NATO, and part of the Western world for decades, Mr. Erdogan continuously breached the Turkish law, even the constitution. He abolished the rule of law, destroyed the long lasting customary practices in the functioning of the state, and violated well established rules and norms in Turkey.

With his increasing self-confidence stemming from his success at demolishing democracy and establishing one man rule at home, Mr. Erdogan step up to the next level, and began violating international rules and norms. He has used inappropriate language -amounting to insulting and even threatening- towards Turkey’s allies in many occasions. For example, he called the German authorities “Nazis” and the Dutch “Nazi remnants”. Mr. Erdogan many times accused the Western countries of supporting terrorism. He even threatened the Europeans saying that (if Europe does not change its policy towards Turkey) “no Europeans in any part of the world will be able to walk the streets safely”. Due to President Erdogan’s political rhetoric quite frequently accusing the West to make plots against Turkey -Mr. Erdogan and his followers blame the U.S. and NATO for the failed coup in July 2016 too- today anti-Western and anti-American sentiments in Turkey reached at a historical high point.

As a violation of international law by Mr. Erdogan’s government, Turkish spies and diplomatic agents abducted around one hundred dissidents across the world, such as in Sudan, Gabon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia. It was revealed that Turkish spy agency (MIT) had planned similar plots even in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. Recently, Turkish agents abducted a Gulenist school principal in Mongolia. Mongolian authorities did not allow the agents to take the principal out of the country, and they officially protested Turkey over its “unacceptable act of violation of Mongolia’s sovereignty and independence”.

A new trend in President Erdogan’s foreign policy making is hostage-taking. After the failed coup attempt in July 2016, Mr. Erdogan has jailed a great number of foreign nationals. Among them are numerous German citizens including journalists and human rights activists, two Greek soldiers, around twenty U.S. nationals including an Evangelist pastor and a NASA scientist, and also local staff of the American Consulates in Turkey, as well as many others from various countries. Mr. Erdogan’s tactic is putting them behind bars over trumped up accusations and using them as bargaining chips in Turkey’s bilateral ties with their home countries.

Because of such illegal and immoral practices Mr. Erdogan’s government resorted to and of Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism and massive crackdown in Turkey, many analysts and commentators currently list Turkey among the rouge states. In the 2000s it was unimaginable to consider Turkey in the same league with North Korea, Iran and Syria, because in those years Turkey under Mr. Erdogan’s rule was implementing democratic reforms which were quite often being praised by the West.

Mr. Erdogan’s hostage diplomacy over American pastor Andrew Brunson currently led to a serious row between Turkey and the U.S. Already troubled relations between the two countries have hit an all-time low. Mr. Erdogan, by using the pastor as a bargaining chip, aims to reach more than one goals. In return for the release of pastor Brunson, Mr. Erdogan asked the American side -release of a Turkish journalist detained in Israel over allegedly providing financial support to Hamas, -extradition of Turkish citizen Hakan Atilla, former deputy general manager of Halkbank, who has been sentenced to 32 months in a U.S. court in Iran sanctions-busting case, -keeping the expected fine on Halkbank at a low amount, -closing two new investigations in the U.S. on Turkey’s violation of American sanctions on Iran. It is reported that these two new investigations might involve members of Erdogan’s inner circle.

When he addressed President Trump in a public statement, President Erdogan himself made it clear that pastor Brunson’s imprisonment was not a judicial but a political decision to use him as a bargaining chip. “Give me the pastor (implying Fethullah Gulen), and I will give you the pastor (Brunson)”, Mr. Erdogan said.

Germany too had to deal with Mr. Erdogan’s hostage diplomacy early this year. After German officials mentioned possible sanctions on Turkey, some meetings took place between the two sides, and subsequently German journalist Deniz Yucel was released from the prison. However, what concessions German government made in this bargaining has not been disclosed. This initiated a hot debate in Germany. Many criticized the German government over this deal and Deniz Yucel himself, besides others, called it a “dirty deal”.

Having seen that his hostage diplomacy bears fruit, Mr. Erdogan continued to seek reaching his goals using this immoral tactic. Pastor Brunson crisis is, in a way, the result of Mr. Erdogan’s victory in his hostage diplomacy in Deniz Yucel case.

Therefore, the U.S. administration should not reward Mr. Erdogan’s hostage diplomacy by meeting his demands using an innocent preacher as a bargaining chip. If President Trump gives in to Mr. Erdogan’s immoral tactic, Mr. Erdogan would most probably keep ruining many innocent people’s lives to reach his goals.

Even worse is that President Erdogan’s success in his hostage diplomacy would set a negative example for other countries, and encourage other leaders who have authoritarian tendencies to follow the same path. This would not only risk many innocent people’s lives, but also destruct established and respected international rules and norms of conducting foreign relations. It would damage international order by making it less predictable and more chaotic. This is not something the countries would desire, especially the democratic ones.

Despite the rise of a dynamic and fiery opposition candidate, President Erdogan comfortably won the presidential election again in the first round held on June 24, 2018.

Muharrem Ince from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) succeeded in mobilising the party’s voter base and addressed several huge public rallies, but could not garner support of the conservative voters who have been propping up Erdogan since he first became Prime Minister in 2003.

Ince’s loss is a shattering defeat for Turkey’s nearly half of the population which is craving for change in the leadership of the country which is increasingly authoritarian and utterly divisive.

It is a shattering defeat particularly because for the first time in sixteen years an opposition candidate appeared better than Erdogan in terms of physical energy, oratory skills and determination to win an election.

These attributes have helped Erdogan surpass the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, to become the longest-serving leader, but did not help the most promising CHP candidate in decades to win enough votes to even push the election to the second round.

Erdogan’s undiminishing popularity despite his moves to grab power and crush any form of dissent, especially following the 2013 corruption scandal, is a situation for which the ultra-secular Kemalists who dominated Turkey until the ascent of Justice and Development Party (AKP) are largely to be blamed, and yet they are the ones who are often let off the hook.

It is an undeniable fact that owing to their religious beliefs and traditional practices, the vast majority of Turkish population was neglected and treated like second-class citizens during the Kemalist era which lasted eight decades.

It is an irony that the Kemalist agenda of “liberalisation” and “democratisation” were carried out in the most illiberal and undemocratic ways.

Under the Kemalist regime, the Turkish Republic was governed with the skewed idea that the state needs to be “protected from the commoners”. Some manifestations of that idea were restrictions on citizens’ participation in policymaking, bureaucratic oligarchy, partiality of the judiciary in favour of the ruling elite and so forth.

The headscarf ban implemented by the Kemalist regime deprived millions of conservative women from pursuing higher education and government jobs. The Kemalists ensured that the people of Anatolia don’t have the opportunity to do anything but work as their subcontractors or daily wagers. Recruiting no one with pious Muslim background in the public sector was also one of their policies.

The long-lasting resentment that these discriminatory policies created among the masses against the so-called “secularism” of the Kemalists cannot be ignored or underestimated.

It is beyond reason and logic to say that this past of the ultra-secular Kemalists has no role in making the Islamist-rooted AKP a formidable force and the conservative Erdogan a messiah.

With Erdogan’s rise the long discriminated majority of Turkey found a voice. For the first time after the fall of Ottoman Empire, they felt the government in power truly represented them. However, how he exploited this trust to grab power and restructure the Turkish state by dismantling Atatürk’s republic is another matter.

Surely the democratic reforms undertaken by Erdogan regime in the initial years had its role in creating the image that Erdogan has today among the conservative voters, but the weirdness of his popularity still remaining unchallenged despite him turning into a ruthless dictator can only be explained by the awful record of his political opponents.