Academics sign statement saying ‘rule of law suspended’
Date posted: February 6, 2014
ANKARA
Academics signed a statement declaring that rule of law in Turkey has been suspended since a corruption scandal implicating various businessmen and government officials erupted on Dec. 17.
Professor Ayhan Aktar, Professor Ersin Kalaycıoğlu and Professor Yasemin İnceoğlu, as well as 147 other academics, signed a statement saying that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government cannot ignore corruption allegations by making up claims of a “parallel state” — which has no meaning in political science or law — and placing all responsibility of unlawful acts on the Hizmet movement, which was inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
A signatory, Professor Gencay Gürsoy, read the statement on behalf of the academics on Thursday.
The statement stressed that the reassignments of thousands of public servants and the worrisome attempts to curb the separation of powers through the judiciary have damaged Turkey’s respect for the principles of law and security and that they have broken the ties between law and legitimacy.
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It stinks. This is the bluntest description of what the graft probe has revealed so far… So, regardless of the view of the issue as “Erdoğan vs the Hizmet movement,” it boils down to a battle between moral and immoral, clean and dirty, which is the real story of Turkey in the past 12 years. It was not the Hizmet movement, nor liberals, nor other reformists that brought the AKP to power; it was the average people of Turkey.
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I’ve been in Uganda for the last 4-5 days to see the schools of the Gulen Movement. As my colleagues missed the flight I’m the only one here. But this turned out to be a good thing. As they welcomed me as the most precious guest and I could visit the houses of the Turkish […]
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