Erdoğan and his supporters have cast the corruption probe as a smear campaign devised by Gülen, who exercises broad, if covert, influence in the media and judiciary through his followers. In response, the government has staged an unprecedented purge of the police forces and has moved to increase its control over the judiciary. Yeşil said that all these allegations were unfounded.
The freshly appointed justice minister, using phrases not easily understandable to people in the streets, said, “Neither God nor the state accepts partners.” This statement does not have an Islamic background. Every citizen is a partner of the state. The duty of a government is to perform common tasks in the name of these partners and based on the mandate given to it.
Today, the government resorts to irrational conspiracy theories in an effort to divert public attention from allegations of corruption. As a social movement that successfully promotes Turkey’s values in its schools in about 150 countries around the world, the Hizmet movement’s patriotism cannot be doubted
The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), whose honorary chairman is Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, has categorically rejected accusations that it is linked to the corruption and bribery investigation that has rocked Turkey for nearly a month, urging everyone to avoid language that only deepens the “dangerous polarization” in the country.
The tactics the government has developed to defend itself against the graft investigations and their implications have once again brought the role of the military, military tutelage and potential coup attempts back onto Turkey’s agenda.
The core matter is neither a power struggle between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Hizmet movement or a so-called imaginary “parallel state,” claim propagated in reference to the natural presence of sympathizers of the Hizmet movement in the public sector. Despite all attempts at diversion and distraction, what we should always keep in mind in our discussions is the charges of corruption, graft and unfair revenues.
The clampdown on the Bank Asya first started with a defamation campaign run by pro-government media outlets and was later followed by a claim by Interior Minister Efkan Ala, who asserted that the bank had made extraordinary profits on the foreign currency market. All these allegations were refuted by the bank, which published their currency transactions; the central bank has confirmed that there has been no wrongdoing by the bank.
A “Fethullahist” parallel state is a conspiracy theory par excellence, exploited by secular as well as Islamist fundamentalists and particularly by the Erdoğan government which vindicates once again the dictum that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
TÜSİAD, just like the [Hizmet] community’s TUSKON, has voiced the concern of possible fouls likely to be committed against the judiciary. As a matter of fact, these concerns have proved right for now with the executive seizing the judiciary.
The rift between the two players [ the AK Party and the Hizmet movement] has been growing since the last general elections in 2011. Since then, the Hizmet movement has become increasingly critical of the AK Party government on a number of fronts, including the lack of progress on the drafting of the new civil constitution and the alienating style and substance of AK Party politics.
The Supreme Court of Appeals has asked a senior Justice and Development Party (AK Party) official to hand over any evidence regarding his allegations about US-based Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen amid claims by the official that a judge at the high court had acted contrary to legal procedures and contacted Gülen before issuing his final verdict in a case against a businessman several years ago.
When the problem is not properly diagnosed, the treatment can’t be on the mark. Let us speak openly: while the problem may appear to be a struggle between children from the same neighborhood — the AK Party and the Gülen movement — the real problem is in fact one that concerns all of society: democracy and justice. And the only solution is to return to real democracy and the principles of the rule of law.