User:Ph8l/sandbox/Istanbul 2014

"Istanbul 2014" A primer on the current situation in Turkey by the members of A History of Constantinople at A.C.S.

Taksim Square

Taksim Square, which is considered to be the heart of European Istanbul, because of its great atmosphere and variety of cultures, was recently the center of a protest, supported by millions of people. Initially, the protests stared because people were unsatisfied with the Taksim Gezi Park project, which is the government's plan to urbanize the popular park area by reconstructing the Taksim Military Barracks and to create a huge shopping center on the land plot of the Gezi Park. More than 3.5 million out of Turkey's 80 million people were involved in the protests, which started on May 26th, 2013 and are still going. A sit-in of the Gezi Park was organized by the protesters, which meant that the place was turned into a Occupy-like camp, where protesters would live inside tents. They also had medical care, food supply and even their own media. The protesters created a small community, operating outside the law. However,in the morning of May 31, the police force infiltrated the camp and attacked the protesters living in tents with tear gas, pepperspray and water cannons. The sit-in of Taksim Gezi Park resumed after the police officially withdrew from Taksim Square on June 1st, 2013. The demonstrators blamed the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for not taking a proper stance on what's going on and for the police's excessive use of force against the demonstrators.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a Turkish politician Born: February 26, 1954 in Istanbul. Prime Minister of Turkey from March 14, 2003. Recep was elected as a mayor of Istanbul in 1994. After he had spent three years in this position in 1997 he's been judged and put in jail for 4 months because of propaganda during the military revolts in the country. He created a new Party of justice in 2001 and wins the vote for parliament in 2002.He is the chairman of Justice and Development Party At the beginning he had no right to become a prime minister because of his past and especially the fact that he was proclaimed guilty by the court. Then just after the mission against Iraq, the Turkish want to make a change in the law so that he could become the prime minister and he did so. He supports the idea that Turkey should join the European Union. On March 22 2014 Erdogan made an attempt to ban Twitter in all of Turkey but the court decides on March 27, 2014 that the government has no right to do that.

Fethullah Gülen

Born 27 April 1941 Religion: Muslim (Sunni and a Suffist)

“Be so tolerant that your bosom becomes wide like the ocean. Become inspired with faith and love of human beings. Let there be no troubled souls to whom you do not offer a hand and about whom you remain unconcerned.” (Fethullah Gülen, Criteria or Lights of the Way. London: Truestar.)

He is a modern Turkish leader, poet, scholar, author, educational activist, whose beliefs are mostly in opposition of Erdogan's. Right now he has a great authority in Turkey. Fethullah supports the international cooperation towards peace, and stands against violence and terrorism. In fact he was the first Muslim scholar to publicly condemn the attacks of 9/11. He also helped to publish a book on Islamic view of the terrorist attacks.

His movement is considered a religious one, but is also politic and social. What Bayram Balci(French-Turkish scholar) says about the Gülen movement's goals is: "And therefore, (Gülen) wishes to revive the link between the state, religion, and society."

Wiretapping Scandal

The Wiretapping Scandal involved up to 7,000 people being subject of violation of privacy and personal rights for over three years. This included journalists, business leaders, academics, and politicians, including the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The story was unraveled on the 24th of February in the daily Turkish newspapers, which published names of people being wiretapped, which proved to be true. Supposedly these people were wiretapped by the Terrorism Prevention Department in an attempt to uncover terrorism plots. "The recordings, which were released via the Internet this evening, accompanied with the allegation that they were a telephone conversation between our Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his son, are completely untrue and the product of an immoral montage," Erdogan's office said in a statement. The government accused Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen movement of the wiretapping, contributing to the tension between Erdogan and Fethullah Gülen, who were once "allies". Mr Gülen denied the accusations. Another person that was accused, Adem Ozcan, denied: "There was definitely no monitoring or phone-tapping of thousands of politicians, writers, NGO representatives and businessmen in the framework of this dossier in the way that the newspaper stories say," Erdogan on the other hand denied that the recordings were true and in turn accused them of being fabricated and illegally distributed. "This attack (by the parallel state) is not against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or the Chairman of the AK Party, but it is an attack against Turkey and its Prime Minister," he said. One of the consequences was the resignation of four ministers after the divulging of the wiretapping.

Turkish Opposition

The role of the opposition in a democratic country is crucial for the insurance that the ruling class will be held accountable for its decision to a greater extent than the citizens who might fail to recognize immmediate threats to the maintenance of their rights and the development of the state can provide for. Turkey has been considered as a model country which represents a ruling system combining secular and Muslim democracy. Democratization preformed by AKP(Justice and Development Party), which is rendered an Islamic party, is a proof of this concept. Still, the AKP promotes a sternly Muslim social order and has dominated the political scene in Turkey since its establishment and especially during the mandates of prime minister Erdogan. Conservatism in Turkey is largely spread especially in the vast territory of Anatolia. Therefore, it is not surprising that AKP won 46% of the votes on the local elections which took place on 30th of March 2014. The CHP(Republican's People Party), a democratic, liberal party, which is considered alternative to the AKP won little support mainly from middle- aged urban populations and the Aegean region of the country. In the summer of 2013 the Taksim Square protests propelled opposition against the AKP's increasingly totalitarian rule. The government's violent, nondemocratic response resulted in the cancelation of further public unrest occurrences. Despite this,the CHP failed to gain voting majority in the last elections. The party has been blamed with a lack of concentration on potential groups of support as the Kurds. The leaders of the party plan reforms mainly concerned with the introduction of young people in its structures. The establishment of a distance between the past and especially the image of Kemal Ataturtk, the politician who created a secular state out of the ruins of the Otoman empire,is the means through which the CHP aspire to gain the vote of the conservative voters. According to a resents statement made by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the party, the CHP are willing to support a candidate who is favored by others minor members of the opposition. Sources:

uk.reuters.com
www.opendemocracy.net
www.britannica.com