In the Ergenekon case, some of those in police custody were released and some were arrested. But there has been no justice, neither in the release of journalist Ilhan Selcuk, nor in the arrest of Workers’ Party leader Dogu Perincek. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is continuing its rule of injustice in all areas.
Dawn raid cruel not because of his age...
Raiding Ilhan Selcuk’s house at dawn was illegal, cruel and rough, and it would have been even if he was 38 years old and not 83, if he was a waiter at the Cumhuriyet beer hall rather than the leading columnist at the Cumhuriyet newspaper…
Just as what happened to Cumhuriyet’s trainee reporter Servet Alcinkaya three years ago in Istiklal Street, central Istanbul was illegal and cruel: When he was stopped and asked for ID, he asked the police fto identify themselves first in order to verify their status. He was taken into police custody, then beaten in the police car and in the police station.
Inappropriate arrests are nothing new...
Hurriedly arresting Dogu Perincek although there was hardly any likelihood of him fleeing or obscuring evidence was just as inappropriate and injust as arresting the chair, and local and central authorities of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and its predecessors since 1993…
The issue is not whether these people committed the “crimes” that have been ascribed to them; rather, it is about citizens’ rights not being protected when they are prosecuted and tried by police and judiciary.
How people measure "justice"
From that point of view it is understandable that there have been reactions to the “injustices” the Ergenekon suspects have suffered when “justice” was being carried out. But it is obvious that the sense of justice of this society has been impaired too far to react “justly” itself: Those protesting against the closure attempts against the AKP argued that it could not be closed because “it received 47 percent of the vote”, and those protesting against the police custody of Ilhan Selcuk argued that “he is 83 years old…” Are these the real measures of justice?
A 100-year struggle for hegemony
We all know that the tension which is currently being hidden by the cover of law is really a hundred-year old struggle for hegemony, and that today’s struggle was born of the specific development of this process. It is no secret that the AKP is trying to base Turkey’s social and cultural life on Islamic values and that, wherever possible, it turns Islam into a point of reference; nor is it a secret that the so-called “nationalists of the left”, or “neo-nationalists”, are pursuing an authoritarian, proto-fascist regime…This struggle does not remain within the boundaries of the law…It is thus not surprising that people on both sides continuously violate the law and use “below the belt” methods…
However, at least officially, the two sides have different responsibilities. It is first of all the government which is politically responsible to society for the administration of “justice.” If the most recent arrests were really to do with the prosecution of a coup d’état, and if we believe this claim, would it not have been reasonable to expect at least an army commander, retired or on duty, to appear before the court?
"Mutual agreement" between army and AKP
But the “Justice and Development Party” is not concerned with justice, but with control, no matter which means, which compromises, which approval were needed for this control…The AKP’s control is guaranteed by the “mutual agreement in Dolmabahce Palace” which Prime Minister Erdogan and Chief of General Staff Büyükanit made, and it is thus naïve to think that justice will be handed out to anyone at a higher level than retired general Veli Kücük. The fact that the AKP has formed a single-party government has made it easy to remain committed to this agreement. On the other hand, this agreement gives the AKP a free hand to deal with the “extra-parliamentarian” pursuits which do not clash with the protected zones of the General Staff.
Dogu Perincek in prison, Ilhan Selcuk at home, this is how the scales of justice work! And what justice it is...(EK/AG)
