Dogfight in Turkey

[english at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl]

ANKARA, Sept 11 (Reuter) - A Turkish military court on Thursday began
the trial of a former senior police intelligence officer alleged to
have spied on the secularist army for the former Islamist-led
government, Anatolian news agency said.

Bulent Orakoglu is accused of taking documents and information
gathered by a "mole" at the naval headquarters and passing them to the
government of former Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin
Erbakan. Orakoglu faces a maximum 10 years in prison.

Former interior minister Meral Aksener earlier acknowledged that
police had watched the army to spot possible preparations for a
military coup against the Islamist-led coalition.

The secularist military saw Erbakan's government as a serious threat
to Turkey's secular traditions.

The police force, at that time answerable to the junior coalition
partner True Path Party of Tansu Ciller, appeared to side with the
Islamist-led coalition in the secularism row with the powerful
military.

Erbakan, modern Turkey's first Islamist leader, resigned in June after
months of back-stage pressure from the military and the mainstream
media. Former policeman Kadir Sarmusak, one of six suspects in the
case, denied charges of acting as a mole at naval headquarters, the
agency said.

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuter) - Turkey's former ruling Islamists used the
anniversary of the 1980 military coup Friday to launch an attack on
the influence of the country's armed forces, the Anatolian news agency
said.
                                       
"The anti-democratic traces of Sept. 12 are still evident," Welfare
Party deputy chairman Ahmet Tekdal said in reference to the day in
1980 when the military staged its third coup in 20 years. "Those who
see themselves as obliged to protect the republic can oust the
political power. The name of it is a militarist system," he told a
news conference.
                                       
The country's powerful generals played a key role in easing Necmettin
Erbakan's Welfare Party out of government in June in a fierce row over
the alleged resurgence of Islamist activism under his leadership.
                                       
Three times, the generals' predecessors had deposed civilian regimes
they said were incapable of protecting the republic from various
domestic threats.
                                       
At a briefing last spring on Islamist activism, the military
leadership said it was the military's duty to protect the country's
secular system "by force of arms" from domestic and external threats.

Political analysts described the collapse of Erbakan's Islamist-led
coalition as the result of a "soft coup."

"You cannot go anywhere with oppression. There is a need to respect
human rights," said Tekdal, referring to the execution of 49 people
and the sentencing of journalists to a total of 3,315 years in jail
during the Sept. 12, 1980, coup.

-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
The Struggle for justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan
http://www.ozgurluk.org                          
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