Yusuf Kanlı

Summer has started glaring behind the spring clouds. Already in many parts of the Mediterranean and Aegean coastal regions of Turkey the "tourism season" has started. Though schools are yet open and despite the burning heat of the economic crisis on the valets, reports indicate that many hotels have already started operating close to full capacity. A friend who spent last week at a five-star Antalya hotel was saying the other day that the hotel was full with foreign tourists and very few Turks. Apparently there was an increase in tourists coming from the euro zone.

At these times of economic difficulties this was good news. Let’s hope Turkey manages to attract the targeted amount of foreign tourists and at least the tourism industry reports 2009 a success.

Summer also means the opening of the picnic season for most Turks who cannot afford, or who do not have time for a holiday escape to one of those "all inclusive" luxurious facilities. Picnicking, on the other hand, produces every year two major headaches: people bitten by ticks and consequently developing Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; and an increase in traffic accidents caused by drunken picnickers.

An Ottoman-era education minister reportedly once commented that: "There would not be any education problem should we close down all the schools." Did he really say that? That’s irrelevant anyhow. The fact is that the sentence reveals the magic formula that executives of this country often prefer in dealing with the problems. Naturally, if you close down all schools, there won’t be a problem at the education ministry; if you prohibit driving on Turkish roads, there would not be deadly traffic accidents while at the same time the country may save on travel expenses. Who cares whether such a mentality would land the country in black illiteracy or imperil trade and social life in the country?

Don’t we, at times, ban democracy in this country for a period when we encounter some serious social, economic or public order problems that civil governments face difficulty in resolving? There are many examples of such interventions in "democracy" but those who intervened never ever succeeded in resolving the problems either and eventually things evolved into even a more serious state of affairs. That is introducing bans or "closing down schools" can be no remedy to problems. Such repressive mindset can no longer be viable in this country.

An officious governor

This week, in yet another isolated case, the governor of Çankırı, a central Anatolian city, issued a circular banning consumption of alcohol at "places open to public." The ban introduced by the governor does not cover individual residences, restaurants or bars and indeed can be considered rather reasonable as no one wants to see drunkards in parks, public gardens or recreation grounds. Furthermore, the governor’s office has explained that the measure was taken as a precaution to keep drunken drivers away from roads. Indeed in Çankırı last weekend, returning from a picnic, a car driven by a reported drunk-driver crashed head-on with another car, two people died, four others suffered some serious injuries and are still in hospital.

Though it appears reasonable, I just could not stop and wonder whether there were some other ulterior motives behind the governor’s ban other than a "noble concern" to save his citizens from drunken drivers. After all, thanks to such "isolated" and often "good intentioned" bans, in today’s Turkey only 19 provinces, naturally headed by "gaivur" İzmir, are left where there is no alcohol ban. With no exception, all these 19 cities are cities are situated either on the Mediterranean, Aegean or Black Sea coasts of the country.

In six provinces, including Ankara and Istanbul, there is no alcohol ban at public restaurants, but they are not served in municipal premises, restaurants and clubs, the municipalities are either creating immense difficulties or rejecting right away extension of licenses of private restaurants and clubs offering alcoholic beverages to their customers. The remaining 56 provinces are totally "alcohol free" and in none of them is there a public or private restaurant or club that serves alcohol.

I am not an alcoholic at all, yet is it not apparent that this country is facing a slice-by- slice, salami-tactic conservative advance?

The great Turkish poet and Sufi mystic Yunus Emre was trying to explain the divine love he had for the God deep inside him when he said, "There is a self in myself, deeper than myself." Obviously we have a Turkey composed of several Turkeys Ğ one in many, many in one. But to which Turkey do we belong?

Is it the Turkey where many honorable professors, soldiers who spent their lives defending the nation and the country, businessmen and intellectuals Ğ all devoted patriots and all critical of the government Ğ were placed behind bars, together with criminals, underground figures, murderers and thieves, and subjected to a summary execution on the front pages and TV screens of a media in allegiance to the government, while some were indicted and many remain in prison without any official charge being brought against them?

Do we belong to the Turkey where people suffer from acute telephone-phobia? Are we living in the Turkey where wives hesitate to call their husbands, fathers fear to call their children and where a Justice Minister can say those who talk on the phone should know that what they say might be "officially" listened to by the "big brother" state Ğ as perhaps some 70,000 have in this nation of over 70 million Ğ while no one can say how many people might have been tapped illegally or subjected to "circumstantial" listening? Or is it the Turkey where getting elected to Parliament has become the best way of escaping justice, thanks to the high walls of judicial immunity provided to the deputies? Perhaps it is the one where having a covered wife and an almond moustache may serve as a higher qualifying factor in getting a top bureaucratic job than a university degree or experience in a particular field?

Could it be the Turkey where a junior feudal landlord aspiring for a larger share, if possible at all in the land of a clan, can order the feudal landlord and half the population of a village be "erased up to their chickens in the coop"? Or is it the Turkey where tradition requires the younger son to marry the wife of his dead brother? Is it the Turkey where the institution of forensic medicine, which also looks at crimes of pedophilia, has been issuing reports saying that children subjected to rape were not "psychologically affected" and where, excluding a brief recent period, no psychologist specializing in children has been employed?

A very sad story
Hold on, perhaps we are living in the Turkey of Nurcan Kaçan and Ferit Demir. Who are they? Well, Kaçan, despite all the efforts of her family to "save their honor," managed to survive 13 shots fired at her and still lives in an Adana village. Demir was not so lucky, he lost his life, and in that respect, a portion of his family’s honor was salvaged!

Though the story is quite sad, the eventual court decision is totally appalling. As Kaçan revealed in her court testimony, after her husband (with whom she did not have an official marriage) went away for his military service, Demir began to blackmail her, saying if she did not allow him into her house, he would spread gossip around that she was going to bed with him. Demir eventually achieved his aim and the two started to get together occasionally. A while later, scared of the consequences should anyone discover the illegitimate affair, Kaçan told her mother-in-law that Demir raped her.

What happens in that Turkey when such an incident occurs? Simple! The family elders come together, evaluate the situation and order one of the adolescent boys in the family to murder both the woman and the man and save the family honor. Why would they order an adolescent boy to carry out the "punishment"? Because adolescents face a reduced penalty for such actions. Thus a boy, entrusted with the duty by family elders, fires nine shots at Kaçan, but fails to kill her. An uncle following him orders the boy to fire at her head and chest. The boy fires four more shots. Still the woman survives. Demir was less fortunate. Another 15-year-old boy, assigned by his relatives to commit the murder in order to avoid a blood feud between the two families, completes his job successfully, killing Demir. Can you guess the outcome in the court? The murderers and those who incited them to violence were first sentenced to heavy penalties. However, with the "reasoning" that if such violent actions had not taken by the two families, the pair would have been discarded by society, the court substantially reduced the penalties. Do we have courts to apply justice, or to promote primitive honor crimes? In which Turkey was this snapshot taken?

In which Turkey are we living?

Can we describe it as a "Kurdish reform" or better brand it as a campaign of getting rid of decades-old oddities? According to some "urban legends" floating around in the Turkish capital, even though prominent ethnic Kurdish intellectuals are still demanding the state to undertake some "closed-door" discussions with a group of "wise men" appreciated by the Kurdish population of the country, both President Gül and Prime Minister Erdoğan have the "political will" to start a process with some modest but meaningful steps. The first and perhaps the most important step the government will undertake in the very near future will be the establishment of a new and powerful Public Order and Security Undersecretariat that Interior Minister Beşir Atalay said would be affiliated with the Interior Ministry; would function separately from the military and civilian intelligence and the police force and would not have operational power but rather serve as an "enforced think tank".

As described by Atalay, the Public Order and Security Undersecretariat perhaps falls short of the government’s original plans to separate the gendarmerie from the military command structure and attach it to this new undersecretariat. Perhaps the military’s irritation to give such vast power to a civilian undersecretary or bring a civilian as the commander of a four-star gendarmerie commander played a role in stripping the new undersecretariat from operational powers and making it a purely "coordination body" that would only "suggest alternative ideas" to battle security challenges. Yet, with its creation for the first time ever, Turkey will have an intelligence coordination body and perhaps capture an opportunity to bring an end to the "influence war" between various civilian and military intelligence networks.

Naturally, one would expect that with such an undersecretariat perhaps ideas for a more effective civilian approach to the eradication of national security threats will become possible. There is also a threat of while trying to build a more secure Turkey we may end up having a new police state, far better functioning than the one we already have and want to get rid of. That is the other and dreadful side of the coin.

Still, if the creation of this new undersecretariat is a step toward increasing the civilian role in the fight against security threats, particularly the separatist Kurdish problem, how can one oppose such a move?

What’s in a name?
According to the urban legend, apart from this not so modest step, Erdoğan and Gül are preparing to take some really modest but very meaningful moves as well. One of those steps might be to make a change in the law on the Turkish alphabet and allow usage of "q, w and x," that are not in the current alphabet, in the names of Turkish citizens. Though it sounds odd for someone who does not have an insight to the problem, because of the restriction on those characters that exist in Kurdish but not in Turkish, many people have served long prison terms in the past. Most recently, the DTP was subjected to an investigation because on a local election campaign placard the party wrote the name of Van city in eastern Turkey with a "W."

Another modest move, reportedly, will be to rename the "Turkified" names of some settlements back to their "non-Turkish" original.

Though to what extent the government could undertake it is still a mystery, another claim is that very much like the Turkish language courses provided in some European, particularly German, schools in districts with sizeable Turkish population, Kurdish might be made "optional lessons" at some schools.

Through further enhancing the laws on foundations and associations, wider rights of organizations might be considered. The restrictions on placing announcements or carrying placards in any other language but Turkish might be eased to include local dialects. That would mean allowing Kurdish or other local languages to be used on placards.

The most important development, on the other hand, might be the lifting of the "Turkish subtitle" obligation for private Kurdish TVs through an amendment in the laws covering radio and television broadcasts.

Is this "urban legend" indeed a reality? We shall see that in the weeks and months ahead. What’s for sure, however, if there is really political will to this end, the government will have to be prepared to engage itself in a very difficult battle to achieve these modest but meaningful moves to eradicate these ages-old oddities.

It all started several weeks ago with a rather ambiguous statement from President Abdullah Gül that Turks must be prepared for some developments toward a resolution of the Kurdish problem. "Some good developments will take place," the president said. Then came statements from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which implied some sort of "correlation" or "link" in what appears to be totally unrelated issues ranging from the failure to bring an end to Kurdish separatist terrorism to the repeated collapse over the past many decades of all peace efforts aimed at resolving the Cyprus problem and to what appeared to be intractable domestic security issues.

"We are approaching an end, God willing. The nation will see the linkage between all these apparently unrelated issues," Erdoğan said. That was followed with the publication of a rather interesting series of interviews a prominent journalist, Hasan Cemal of Milliyet, conducted with some prominent members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, gang up on the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq. The publication of the interviews, in which separatist chieftains suggested a resolution of the Kurdish problem through dialogue and implied willingness to lay down arms, coincided with the mass murder of some 45 villagers, including children and pregnant women, in Bilge village in Mardin province in what appeared to be a honor crime coupled with a land dispute.

The Bilge village carnage, in which village guards murdered in cold blood some other village guards and their wives and children, all belonging to the same family, triggered a discussion in the country whether the time had come to bring an end to the 17-year-old practice of the village guard system. While first lady Hayrinüsa Gül traveled to Bilge to express her condolences and assure the remaining villagers that the children whose parents were killed in the carnage would be taken care of by the state, newspapers were reporting remarks made by President Gül on the sidelines of a meeting in Prague that he considered the Kurdish problem to be the No. 1 issue in the country and reiterated that soon there would be some promising developments for a resolution of that key "domestic issue."

As this discussion continued, there was also a debate on the need and the scope of a new constitutional amendment package, the main theme of which appeared to be an effort by the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government to win hearts and minds over a magical formula to make it very difficult, if not to prohibit, party closures by the Constitutional Court and make comprehensive changes in the structure of the court and render it less functional. Naturally, the heads of the high courts of the country, one after the other, commented on the issue and warned Ğ some covertly, some openly Ğ that the "untouchable" articles defining Turkey as a secular, democratic republic adhering to the supremacy of law could not be amended directly or indirectly.

Then came a very rare "deep background" discussion between a senior journalist, İsmet Berkan, the editor in chief of Radikal, and Erdoğan. Even though it was a "deep background" briefing by the premier to Berkan, as well as to Akif Beki, the new Radikal writer who until recently was the head of the Erdoğan’s censure department, pardon, press office, from the impressions of Radikal’s editor, it became apparent that the prime minister has been "cautiously optimistic" about the Kurdish problem; a consideration is under way to rename the "Turkified" settlement names back to their original; it is highly probable that the scope and "independence" of Kurdish private broadcasting will be enhanced in the near future; both the civilian and military authorities as well as bureaucracy are changing their "resistance to taboo issues such as wider rights to ethnic Kurdish population"; the prime minister might bring an end to his rejection of shaking hands with executives of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, and it will not be a surprise if we see Ahmet Türk invited to a meeting with the premier; and Erdoğan is willing to abandon his much accustomed aggressive leadership style, and the "new Erdoğan" will be one seeking compromise rather than trying to impose his views.

And, the prime minister spoke in Malatya: "You see, apparently unrelated things are being proven to be elements of a big knot. Some people [who criticize the so-called Ergenekon probe] are unaware of the realities. When they learn, they will join the caravan as well!"

President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan must be fuming over remarks by a top judge who reminded them that in democracies being elected or having an outstanding parliamentary majority cannot give absolute power to a political personality or group to change everything the way that person or group likes, in any fashion they prefer because in democracies all powers are restricted. This is indeed the subject of a discussion that has been continuing in this country. Can an elected parliamentary majority have the power to make amendments in the laws and in the Constitution of the country without any restrictions? If there are restrictions limiting the power of the elected; if getting elected is a demonstration of national will and if national will is supreme to anything else, how can it be possible that an elected parliamentary majority cannot have the power to change the laws and the Constitution of the country the way it considered fit?

A prime minister serving in the 1950s was once quoted telling his party’s majority group in Parliament that as elected representatives of the nation they were having the power to do whatever they would like on behalf of the nation and if they wished so they could even reintroduce the Shariah law in the country. It was the same power-obsessed prime minister, however, who was as well quoted telling that his party was so strong that it could get elected to parliament a piece of wood if he nominated it in the parliamentary elections. That mentality, unfortunately, triggered the first-ever military coup of the republican period in 1960 and not only the premier but two members of his cabinet lost their lives at the gallows after they were "sentenced" to death by an extraordinary tribunal in a mockery trial with some trivial charges. Not only they lost their lives but the country and Turkish democracy suffered seriously as well.

The "piece of wood" of the 1950s became an "empty jacket" in 2008’s Turkey. The power-obsessed ruling party of the country was sure that even if it nominated an "empty jacket" the nation would elect the "jacket" as mayor. Despite all the election bribery and warnings by members of the government that in order to get a better government support for their municipalities they should vote for candidates of the ruling party, the electorate did not elect "filled jackets" at many localities and the ruling party lost some eight percentage points compared the previous elections. Arrogance was punished by the nation. Turkey was no longer the Turkey of the 1950s. Still, the ruling party of the country continued subscribing majoritarianism instead of pluralism and insisted on seeking a "consensus" on its own terms rather than trying to reach a common point with the opposition parties while on the other hand continues complaining that if an elected majority cannot make amendments in the Constitution perhaps "we should go out for prayers to have a military coup which will stay in power just for a period enough to make a new constitution." This is manifestation of the same crooked mentality obsessed with the "majoritarianism" complex shrouded in a democratic "supremacy of national will" cloth.

Restricted power
However, what did the Council of State top judge Mustafa Birden remind the politicians yesterday? He underlined that the power of elected parliaments to make amendments in the national charters, or constitutions, is not a limited one. "The legislative power should not go out of the framework that provides its own legitimacy. The power to make amendments in the Constitution is not a power that can be arbitrarily applied with no restrictions. A constitutional amendment must be undertaken not only according to the established procedures but also in conformity with the legal framework, the spirit of the constitution and universal norms of law. A constitutional amendment (in Turkey) is possible only on the condition of conformity with those articles of the 1982 Constitution that cannot be amended and amendment of which cannot even be suggested, the principles that these articles make reference to in the preamble and on condition that the changes wanted do not compromise the founding philosophy of our state." Furthermore, the top judge states that an amendment that would compromise secularism principle directly or indirectly would not be incompatible with domestic law, but would as well be contrary to the universal norms of law because secularism was an achievement that the Turkish nation must protect vigorously. Let’s hope the Justice and Development Party received the message.

As we would expect from him, apparently, President Abdullah Gül has put an end to the discussions on whether his term in office is five or seven years, by agreeing to go with the five-year term description in the amended constitution and asked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not to include a proposal to increase the presidential term to seven. Consequently, Erdoğan appears to have not only accepted the request of the president but decided to also drop the consideration of increasing the parliamentary to five years.

Both ideas were absurd anyhow. How the ruling AKP would explain to the nation why they reduced both presidential and parliamentary terms in the run up to the 2007 parliamentary elections and why they are now trying to restore them back to the pre-amended periods? By deciding to give up such amendment demands the AKP has at least eradicated two contentious discussion subjects from the apparently crowded web of problematic constitutional amendment proposals, headed by a rather legitimate idea of rendering party closures by the Constitutional Court so difficult that in reality party closures will come to a de facto end.

Castrated AKP

While there appears to be a consensus in the country that whatever extensive amendments are being made in the text of the 1983 military-scissored current constitution the anti-democratic spirit of it cannot be eradicated in full, it is a fact as well that particularly after the Constitutional Court’s annulment of the amendment package aimed at allowing headscarves in universities and after the AKP was condemned by the Constitutional Court as a "focus of anti-secular activities" (tough it narrowly escaped closure thanks to the qualified majority requirement), the AKP’s constitutional amendment capability, irrespective of its parliamentary strength, is unfortunately castrated.

Naturally, the AKP’s Burhan Kuzu was complaining this week that if a new constitution, or at least a comprehensive constitutional amendment, was required but if the present Parliament was incapable of undertaking such a constitutional reform because of refusal of the opposition parties (to approve the package and thus provide legitimacy to AKP’s drive), then should Turkey go on "coup prayers" and hope that this time the coup administration stays for just a brief period to write a new constitution and return to the barracks without harming Turkish democracy too much?

This was of course a valid question and a very appropriate joke reflecting the dilemma the country has been brought to by the wrong moves of the AKP governance. But, we can at least say that there is at least one person in the AKP who has realized that unless the AKP establishes a consensus with the opposition parties on the set of amendments it would like to make in the constitutional text it just cannot do it alone. If Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shelves for some time his aggressive and rejectionist style towards the opposition, perhaps we may finally capture a probability to undertake a comprehensive reform even if we are very much aware that whatever changes might be done, the 1983 Constitution will still have some anti-democratic elements or some articles that are still open to interpretation by some judges with an anti-democratic perspective.

Non-partisan constituent assembly

Indeed, what Turkey needs is to gather a new nonpartisan consultative assembly with an all-inclusive understanding and which in collaboration with the universities and civil society would write and suggest to Parliament a new national charter. Can we do it? Unfortunately as long as the AKP continues to believe in majoritarianism rather than pluralism; insists in considering "compromise" as "giving in" to the demands of the opposition; remains preoccupied with finding a formula to cascade the party closure power of the top court; convert it into a tool of the parliamentary majority and dilute its importance through increasing the number of judges on the one hand and allowing right of individual application on the other, it will be difficult for the opposition parties in getting engaged in a constitutional reform move together with the AKP. Can the AKP change? Can Erdoğan change? Can the AKP convince the opposition that it gave up majoritarianism and started to subscribe to pluralism? Can the AKP convince its opponents that it is after reform that goes beyond preventing a possible new closure case against it?

Difficult, if not impossible.

It was perhaps so unfortunate for Hasan Cemal that the publication in Milliyet of the first part of a series of an interview with a notorious terrorist up in the Kandil mountains coincided with the worst-ever carnage during a wedding ceremony at a remote village in Mardin. The tragedy, for obvious reasons, overshadowed Cemal’s important interview with Murat Karayılan, the apparent "commanding" chieftain of the outlawed PKK terrorist gang at a village up on Kandil.

Perhaps many people in this country have started to develop some kind of Stockholm syndrome. Otherwise, remarks of notorious Karayılan to Cemal would not sound so positive, particularly days after this country lost nine more soldiers.

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological condition derived from a 1973 hostage incident in a Stockholm bank during which some of the kidnap victims become so sympathetic to their captors that at the end of six days of captivity they actually resisted rescue attempts, and afterwards refused to testify against their captors.

Karayılan explained to Cemal that although some PKK members planted that deadly mine, they were not acting on orders of the PKK command but rather planted the mine as a "auto-reflex" to a report that there was a military dispatch to that rural area in the Dicle town. It was, of course, unfortunate as well that the "peaceful remarks" of the terrorist chieftain came at a time when in Istanbul streets members or sympathizers of the gang are still ransacking shops, burning cars, even attacking crowded municipal buses with Molotov cocktails.

On the other hand, as the remarks of Karayılan came while a concerted effort by Turkey and Iran on terrorist presence in northern Iraq has been under way, one cannot stop but think whether the separatist chieftain was in an effort to demonstrate to members of the gang that he was so comfortable at his "headquarters on Kandil" despite the ongoing bombings that he could host for several hours a top Turkish journalist. That is, Karayılan might be exploiting Cemal for propaganda of the gang. But, whatever might be our evaluations, Cemal’s interview was just great, and he has to be congratulated even though in the near future we may find him being questioned by prosecutors on charges that he violated the anti-terror law by interviewing Karayılan.

That will not be the first such case in Turkey, anyhow. Obviously, I do agree as well that while there is no meaning in trying to demonize the demon, an effort to portray a terrorist chieftain as a "peace loving leader" cannot serve any purpose other than to promote the terrorist gang. Still, if we are to concentrate on the "substance" of the interview of Cemal with Karayılan, there are some very strong signs that despite the flare of ethnic-nationalism and consecutively a heightened threat of ethnic polarization in some parts of the country, there is still a serious possibility of silencing the guns and giving dialogue and a political process an opportunity to resolve this age-old problem without compromising the integrity of the nation and the state but with due acknowledgement of differences.

Offer unacceptable but can be ’reciprocated’
Karayılan’s suggestion that the Turkish state consider either the separatist chieftain serving an enforced life-term at the İmrali island prison, the current PKK leadership or the "political representatives" in Parliament as "negotiating partners" or engage in a "proxy dialogue" through the help of a group of wise men might not be at all acceptable for the Turkish state. Still, this offer underlines a demand for a "non-violent way out" that Ankara should perhaps take very seriously and produce its own "civilian approach formula." Perhaps Ankara should also take into consideration the recent statement of top commander Gen. İlker Başbuğ that perhaps Turkey should take some additional measures for better application of the legislation that aims to bring down from mountains the PKK members who were not involved in crimes and rehabilitate them. Perhaps the first step might be to stop demonizing the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, or to stop the judicial process against "stone-throwing kids." If there is a slight opportunity for a non-violent resolution, perhaps this time Turkey should grasp it, probably silently but with actions shouting loud. Or, have we started developing Stockholm syndrome?

Why is Prime Minister Erdoğan so angry with the media that has been refusing to enter under some degree of allegiance with his government? Why is the government sending Finance Ministry inspectors to the publishers of the newspapers or owners of the TV stations that refuse to take "under control" columnists writing in their newspapers or who reject requests to issue instructions to news desks of the papers and TV stations they own to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the wrongs of the government?

Sometimes, the prime minister even confesses how ridiculous his requests to a publisher have been. Did he not disclose in the pre-March 29 local elections offensive on Doğan Holding, for example, that he complained to Aydın Doğan about articles by some of the writers in the Doğan group of newspapers but Doğan told him that he could not "control" either the writers or the news desks? He, of course, had disclosed those discussions to "demonstrate" how "incapable" Doğan was in "controlling" what the people paid by his holding should think or write, but indeed provided an idea to the media under the government’s or the Fethullah Gülen brotherhood organization’s control what freedom of expression, freedom of press and perhaps even a wider intellectual independence might be.

It is not accidental at all. Often, talking with junior journalists employed in the allegiant media, I cannot manage to hide my sorrow hearing how close relations have been established between the government offices, headed by the Office of the Prime Minister and the newsrooms of those newspapers and TV stations. The interference by the premier, ministers and some top officials in the reporting of those media outlets appears to have reached to such dimensions that the editors were turned into "secretaries," taking instructions and applying them like robots.

Thus, we should not be surprised to see the glorification of the Davos theatrical show or the "Rasmussen horse trading" being presented as a major diplomatic success. Nor should we be surprised to see efforts to demonize the elected new government in northern Cyprus while eulogies are being made to a terrorist Hamas, despite its refusal to disavow terrorism, lay down arms and convert itself into a civilian political party, just because it received a majority of the vote in the last Palestinian elections. But the government and its allegiant media are complaining of European hypocrisy toward Turkey.

The AKP’s allergyThe real allergy of the AKP to freedom of the press is a result of its inability despite exerted efforts to "bring into line" the entire Turkish media and keep away from the nation’s eyes the allegations of gross corruption made in the name of Islam by the so-called Lighthouse Islamic charity organization; the establishment of a major TV channel with funds siphoned from that organization and claims that some of the money siphoned was indeed used in the financing of the AKP, a charge which if it could be verified could end up with AKP’s closure by court.