Western Resistance

« Iraq: Voting Completed in Parliamentary Election | | Australia: Details in Muslim Cleric's Deportation Ruled "Secret" »

December 15, 2005

Turkey: Erdogan's Islamists Ban Alcohol, Author On Trial

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured, right) has passed a law which permits town mayors to create "alcohol "dry zones", in a move which is seen by many as a step towards Islamisation. Erdogan has attempted to present his government as "moderate" enough to comply with the accession into the European Union.

Erdogan is an avowed Islamist, and treads a delicate path between imposing social changes to the constitution, and being deposed by the army, who defend Turkey's secular constitution, and have dissolved governments with Islamist agendas.

Most of Turkey's 67 million inhabitants are Sunni Muslims, though Kemal Attaturk (who liked to drink raki, a Turkish alcoholic drink made from aniseed) introduced a secular constitution in the 1920s, after he had deposed the Ottoman Caliphate.

When the Turkish universities' decision to impose secular dress upon students was challenged in the European Court's Grand Chamber in Strasbourg, and lost, Erdogan said he accepted the decision yet still criticised the ruling at a talk in Denmark.

The last Islamist party to gain power was dissolved by the army in 1996. Erdogan's comments on the headscarf ban were examined by a prosecutor, to see if his statements had breached the secular constitution.

The Scotsman reports on this law which is once again bringing questions about the Islamic intentions of the government. Tufan Turenc, a political analyst in Hurriyet newspaper wrote "Let's not be fooled. [Erdogan's AKP Party] is slowly wrapping the Islamic blanket around us."

On December 10, the LA Times stated that since Erdogan's government came to power in 2002, it has gradually increased taxes on alcohol, with beer taxes increased by 450%.

An opposition politician, Emin SIrin said of the law: "This government has not abandoned its Islamist reflexes."

Erdogan has blamed alcohol consumption for 80% of all road deaths, though the police statistics give the figure as 1%.

On Saturday, 16 November, 2002 Erdogan's party won the election. But Erdogan could not initially stand, as he was still under a period of political restriction following an incident which caused him to be removed from his previous elected post of mayor of Istanbul. He had recited a nationalist poem at a rally, which saw him imprisoned for four months, on charges of inciting religious hatred.

The UK Independent describes the anger felt at the ban in some tourist areas: "The resort of Antalya, run by the AKP, has given into pressure from businesses and designated the city a "wet area" in reaction to the plans [to ban alcohol from the city entirely]."

Lawyers from the Ankara Bar Association earlier in the week filed a lawsuit to stop some districts from forcing bars and alcohol-serving restaurants to be moved out of town centres. The authors of the suit claim that the law is unconstitutional and an "affront to freedoms."

Hurriyet states that the Ankara Bar Association have encouraged other cities to make similar legal challenges. It says there are many councils in the country currently managed by members of the ruling party.

NTV MSNBC states that the Ankara Bar Association has criticised, as well as the bans of alcohol sales in built-up areas, the compromising clause which permits municipalities to allow the selling of alcohol within designated "red street" zones:

The Association claimed that the "red streets" scheme was against the state of law, equality and the right to work covered under the constitution. In its application the Association claimed that drinking bans were being imposed by the municipality and such practises had shaken the faith in receiving justice in Turkey.

Haluk Koc, a leading member of the secular Republican People's Party, stated: "Turkey will not be a state ruled by ayatollahs," reports Pravda. "Turkey's modern gains cannot be disposed of so cheaply, so easily, as though there is no tomorrow," Koc said.

Pravda relates a bizarre incident when a man wrote to Erdogan, saying he had received a message from beyond the grave, from a deceased religious leader, with advice on how to reform the education system. Newspapers say that this letter was forwarded to the Education Ministry for review, who then passed it on to the board in charge of higher education. This led to an accusation that the Erdogan government was guided "by religious revelation".

And while the government's attempts to impose an Islamist alcohol-reduction create resentment, and may be viewed by the EU as a retreat from the reforms which Erdogan introduced, as conditional measures to begin talks on accession on October 3, another test of the liberal and democratic nature of Turkey begins tomorrow.

Turkey's best-selling and internationally acclaimed novelist and author, Orhan Pamuk (pictured), is going to be standing trial tomorrow, Friday 16th December. The EU's Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn last month denounced the trial. And Pamuk's crime?

In February he gave an interview to a Swiss newspaper, in which he said: "a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares talk about it," referring to the recent Kurdish conflicts and the 1916 massacre of Armenians.

Being tried under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, for insulting Turkish identity, Pamuk's case is drawing international attention to focus on Turkey. International PEN, which campaigns for writers' freedom of expression, said the trial contravened Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pamuk faces a possible sentence of three years' jail if he is convicted.

The BBC notes that Olli Rehn stated that "trial of a novelist who expressed a non-violent opinion casts a shadow" over talks on Turkey's entry into the European Union.

Rehn said that the case gives a chance to "set a positive precedent for the numerous other cases of free speech that are awaiting trial. It is not Orhan Pamuk who will stand trial tomorrow, but Turkey."

Olli Rehn had visited the author in Istanbul days after October 3, when Turkey passed the first hurdle to begin negotiations on EU entry, and bought several of Pamuk's books. He declared that he is a fan of the writer.

According to Hurriyet, Prime Minister Erdogan, who is currently in Sydney (not kicking sand on Cronulla Beach), has criticised the campaigns which have been mounted against the Pamuk trial. He said they were putting pressure on Turkey's judiciary. "I find that a little controversial to the principle of respecting the rule of law," he said.

Erdogan noted on "international pressure groups": "I don't think the way they act is very proper in this case."

On possible outcomes of the trial, Erdogan said: "The result may very well be that he will be acquitted. It will be up to the judicial process to take its course."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 15, 2005 3:28 PM

Comments

Posted by: Conde at December 15, 2005 8:44 PM

Post a comment