January 8, 2009

A new wave of arrests was carried out in Turkey yesterday under the guise of the still-unfolding Ergenekon investigation. As I've written elsewhere, the Ergenekon investigation began in 2007 as an effort to root out state involvement in death squads and drug smuggling dating back to the early 1980s, but has (since the middle of 2008) taken a dramatic turn. Since the middle of last year, dozens of prominent journalists and military figures have been arrested on charges they were plotting to overthrow Turkey's Justice and Development Party (known in Turkey as the AK Party). A trial of all of these figures began outside Istanbul last Fall, but is still in the preliminary stages.

I hate to say this, but all of this is darkly reminiscent to me of the latter years of the Adnan Menderes government, which was overthrown in 1960 (Menderes was later hanged). As was the case with the AK Party when it came to power with a large majority in 2002, Menderes' Demokrat Party also came under strident attacks from the "secular" opposition in Turkey from the very day that it came to power in 1950. In the 1950s, Menderes and his government were characterized as "Islamist" and "anti-republican" by the opposition Republican People's Party (the party first established by Atatürk in 1923-24), which is exactly what happened after the AK Party came to power earlier this decade. In both cases, the charges were unfair, and were largely a reflection of the efforts of these parties to normalize the public expression of Islamic piety in Turkey, something which has often been suppressed in Turkey.

After years of an increasingly poisoned political atmosphere and continued electoral victories, Menderes began fighting back against the political opposition, using increasingly authoritarian methods. Attempts to censor newspaper reports of anti-government demonstrations in the late 1950s invited further demonstrations, which were met with increased government violence. This ended with the coup of 1960 and, ultimately, Menderes' execution.

I could be wrong: perhaps Ergenekon really is only about investigating actual efforts by opposition figures to unlawfully overthrow the government. Maybe all of the journalists, military figures, and community activists who have been arrested over the past year are indeed plotting to overthrow the government, in which case they deserve to be put in prison. If, however, this investigation is simply a witchhunt designed to intimidate the political opposition, then the leaders of the AK Party—Prime Minister Tayyıp Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül—would be advised to think carefully about Menderes' tragic end before carrying on this war any further.