Ertugrul Ozkok: We hope the Ergenekon indictment starts a real legal process
Güncelleme Tarihi:
On Saturday I received a phone call from Dogan Hizlan, a columnist of Hurriyet. He told me a newspaper claimed that the owner of Hurriyet and Dogan Group, Aydin Dogan, was being sought by police and would be detained.
I was surprised because I was on my way to meet Aydin Dogan. We bought the newspaper Hizlan mentioned. Heading the front page was the story with a headline that read: "PROCEDURES TO START IF HE DOES NOT SURRENDER"
Initially we thought Hizlan was right, after reading this headline; however, the rest of story was completely different.
A document was confiscated from the home of Retired General Sener Eruygur, who was arrested in the Ergenekon operation. According to this document, the Dogan Group was not expected to support the coup. In that case, a "procedure" would be implemented for Aydin Dogan.
Can this be true? Yes, it can.
When you look at the headline of the story, Aydin Dogan is a "putschist", but when you look at the body of the article, he is someone who resists the coup.
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According to another story, the National Intelligence Agency had submitted a report to the government many, many years ago. The report included the organizational structure of the Ergenekon gang.
In this table was written the names of "the editor-in-chief of a major newspaper, its
If you ask an average person to identify those people by name, many would say Hurriyet is the "major newspaper" and
They do not give any names, but it is very easy to point the finger and create suspicion.
The Ergenekon case has taken its place in Turkish history as the most disgusting disinformation case.
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The first curtain of this case was raised yesterday.
The chief prosecutor revealed the technical details of the indictment.
It is impossible to make any predictions with this information.
But it resulted in two positive outcomes:
First, the chief prosecutor confirmed the "fact of disinformation".
And second, the General Chief of Staff demanded the documents on the issues related to the army from the prosecutors. I see this as the will of the army to investigate the allegations being made.
My belief is this:
There might be some organizations, serious and acute incidents within the scope of this investigation called Ergenekon.
They could have been initiated to target our democracy.
It would be in everybody's, our country's and our democracy's best interests to reveal the facts in a logical period of time and to punish those people if they committed such crimes.
For this reason, the case should be rescued from this disgusting disinformation marsh and moved to legitimate ground.
Also we expect the General Chief of Staff to start an investigation and do what is necessary.
We should all support such a process.
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This case showed the true intent of many people who refer to themselves intellectuals, liberals and democrats.
Look at Cem Ozdemir, a parliamentarian from a European Union member country. Before the indictment was even prepared, he became the prosecutor and wrote an indictment, then became the judge and convicted those accused. Moreover, he started to punish them by suggesting "they should be executed".
I hope the prosecutor's news conference yesterday marks the start of a real legal process and closes the door on this period of disinformation and unfair lies.