MAIN FOCUS: Turkey provokes the Kurds | 14/12/2009
The ban on the main Kurdish party the DTP in Turkey has triggered angry protests among the Kurds. The Constitutional Court justified its decision by saying the party was too closely linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK. The verdict will have a negative impact on the democratic process in Turkey and will aggravate the domestic conflict with the Kurds, the press writes.
Closure Of Kurdish Party proves Turkish democracy is still not fit for purpose.
Turkey’s ‘Kurdish Problem’ (Aljazeera)
Turkey criticized for closing pro-Kurdish political party (Amnesty International)
The DTP has been shut down
As far as its legality, the Constitutional Court?s decision to close the Democratic Society Party (DTP) was apparently in keeping with the law. However, politically the pro-status quo establishment was expecting a more auspicious decision from the court.
Constitutional Crisis
The troubling closing of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party by Turkey’s highest court can be blamed on a number of actors and factors. Joost Lagendijk, a former member of the European Parliament who now writes a column for the Hurriyet Daily News, notes that the closure is not really a matter of Turks versus Kurds, but really part of a battle between “Turks and Kurds who are willing to find a political compromise on one side and Turks and Kurds who are not interested in finding a solution on the other side….The decision by the Constitutional Court to close down the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, is just the last domino that is falling over, set in motion by a perfidious coalition of Turks and Kurds who are willing to do everything to stop the process of reconciliation that was recently started by the government.”
Turkey’s Erdogan criticizes ban on Kurdish party | Reuters
New Kurdish party active
ISTANBUL ? After the banning of the DTP last Friday, Kurdish activists have formed a new political party: the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). The party was founded earlier this year to take over the activiteis of the DTP in case the DTP was closed down. According to DTP leader Ahmet Türk, the BDP is
Conducting democracy with the Kurds
WPR Blog | Turkey’s Tough Road to Reform
Will Turkey’s Caste System Survive?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News] Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s Nobel laureate in literature, has an interesting passage in his cherished book, “Istanbul.” He recalls his childhood days in the ’50s, and tells how the urban upper class he grew up within looked down upon their practicing co-religionists. “The nation-state,” he writes, “belonged more to us than to the religious poor.” Pamuk is right. The Turkish nation-state, born in the mid-20s as a republic without democracy, belonged mainly to the secular elite. In the Ottoman times, in fact, the elite were much more diverse and included religious conservatives as well. But the latter were systematically purged from the “center” of society in the era of High Kemalism (1925-1950). In the “university reform” of 1933, for example, hundreds of professors who disagreed with the Kemalist ideology lost their jobs. The state was creating the elite in its own image, and those who rejected being “re-created,” a term used by Mustafa Kemal, were being sidelined.
Court closure decision under magnifying glass
Why closing down political parties is (almost) always wrong
Politics after the DTP
The Constitutional Court, ruling on a case that lasted two years, decided to close the Democratic Society Party (DTP). The decision was reached unanimously by the court?s 11 judges.
Hawks beat doves
Home goal
Cross-examination of Balbay continues Today’s Zaman The current trial is one of two separate trials into Ergenekon. This one is based on the second and third indictments prepared so far in the case, |
Statues are seen at the entrance of the Constitutional Court in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009. Turkey’s highest court began deliberations Tuesday on a case seeking to close down the country’s pro-Kurdish party and expel several party members from parliament on charges of ties to Kurdish rebels.(AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)
ESI Web has a background folder on the Cage Plan within the Ergenekon Case.
All roads lead to a new constitution
“Turkey’s Civil War”, by Mücahit Bilici
Protecting democracy, prosecuting coup plotters, promoting public opinion
?Disappointed? is perhaps a word far too weak — when Turkey?s Republican People?s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Onur Öymen made his by-now-infamous remarks about the 1937 Dersim massacre, I initially said to myself that figuratively speaking, his spin doctor must have had a very bad day.
How are coup plots financed?
[CROSS READER] A first in Turkish history
Last Saturday went down in Turkish history as the first time three retired top commanders testified to civilian prosecutors on suspicion of conspiring to overthrow the ruling government by staging a coup.
Today’s Zaman
An academic who is standing as a defendant in the trial of Ergenekon, a clandestine gang charged with plotting to overthrow the government, has testified
Untouchables’ turn to testify in Ergenekon probe
Today’s Zaman
Prosecutors conducting an investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine network charged with plotting to overthrow the government, called former Land Forces
Today’s Zaman
One of the suspects in the 2006 Council of State shooting and a hand grenade attack on the Cumhuriyet daily has said he first began to think of Ergenekon,
Today’s Zaman
In an analysis of the Ergenekon investigation, the European Stability Initiative (ESI), a Berlin-based think tank, likened the importance of the pending
Three top commanders questioned for 10 hours
Hurriyet Daily News
Hilmi Özkök, the key witness in the ongoing trial, had previously given a deposition to Ergenekon prosecutors implicating alleged coup plotters
Three Pashas after the questioning…
Hurriyet Daily News
The Ergenekon case was opened after the discovery of 27 hand grenades June 12, 2007, in a shanty house in Istanbul’s Ümraniye district belonging to a
Sunday’s Zaman
For a trial which many in Turkey view as the most significant case of the century, the Ergenekon court case took a new twist last week as prosecutors
Headscarf was used to mislead investigators Today’s Zaman Osman Yıldırım, now an Ergenekon suspect since his case was merged with the Ergenekon trial, an investigation into a clandestine gang charged with plotting |
Land Forces eliminates article legitimizing coups
Today’s Zaman
As Turkey is for the first time bringing coup plotters before the judiciary with the investigation into Ergenekon, a shadowy crime network which has alleged
Alevi leader Balkız: New left-social democrat party will solve problems, including those of Alevis
Ali Balkız, head of the Federation of Alevi-Bektaşi Associations (ABF), has said Turkey needs a new social democrat party on the left to solve many problems of the country, including those faced by Alevis, because the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) does not act like one.DTP undermines Turkey?s EU path, reforms
Nation says the final word, not DTP, says PM
Hurriyet Daily News
In response to Baykal’s remarks, Erdoğan said the Ergenekon case was still being investigated by the judiciary and that the opposition leader was
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