Is this justice or revenge, asks Sayed Abdel-Meguid Ankara's famous Balgat neighbourhood, where the Turkish Foreign Ministry is based, has now also become the seat of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Several years ago, the party moved from its more modest headquarters to the newly constructed large, elegant, gleaming white structure, which was deemed more suitable for a ruling party and its leader who would be receiving media and foreign leaders at the opening ceremonies of the party's general congress. What a coincidence it was that the conference activities should kick off at the end of September, a month firmly ingrained in the Turkish mind. On 12 September 32 years ago, Turkey experienced the third coup in the history of the youthful republic, ushering in the Third Republic and some pretty grim memories. But the power of coincidence did not stop there. On 22 September, which is to say ten days after the Turks marked the anniversary of that military takeover, which stifled political life, swept aside democracy, and shunted tens of thousands of politicians, political activists, journalists, writers, intellectuals and creative artists into prison, a Turkish court passed heavy sentences against more than 300 military officers for plotting a coup against the AKP government. Such was the news that blared from Silivri district of Istanbul province located outside metropolitan Istanbul, although the sound waves were not picked up by major Turkish media channels, which were focused on matters of greater concern to the Turkish people and their country. It appears, therefore, that the events in Silivri attracted more attention abroad than at home. Silivri is a quiet district which, after sunset, becomes enveloped in an eerie silence. Is this because it is home to the large prison complex that takes its name from the district, or to the criminal court that does the same? It is hard to say why this remote district was chosen for the fray of criminal litigation and its aftermath. Could it be because it is so remote from the bustle and crowds of the metropolis, and the curiosity of those of Turks who might be eager to have a front-row view of the scenes unfolding from Turkey's trial of the decade? The "Sledgehammer-coup" trial, as it is known, followed the thwarting by vigilant security forces of a conspiracy to destabilise the country in order to justify bringing the "sledgehammer" down on the Islamist AKP government. After the small circle of "primary actors" were arrested, investigations gradually led to the arrest of hundreds more officers of varying ranks. Then, following over 21 months of depositions, pleas and defences, the court sentenced most of the 363 defendants to 15 to 20 year prison terms. Thirty-six were acquitted, although they remain under arrest due to other charges that have yet to be adjudicated. Turkish opposition parties have decried the ruling. Indeed, they derided the entire "sledgehammer" conspiracy as a farce. Evidently, for a while they held out hope that the muse of impartial justice would prevail and enable the court to discern between trumped up evidence and the unequivocal proof that would acquit the defendants who had borne arms in defence of the nation and its unity. However, their hopes were defeated, for the judges were under the sway of the legislative authority and its AKP chief, or so opposition forces claim. In a sorrowful tone that dripped with sarcasm, the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party Kemal Kilicdaroglu summed up the proceedings as follows: "There was a judge and a public prosecutor and there were chambers of justice, but justice, itself, was absent." The leader of the far right National Action Party Devlet Bahceli lamented that "traitors" (referring to Kurdish separatists) roamed free and unimpeded in Anatolia while honourable patriots were being shunted into prisons. Meanwhile, many other sympathisers with the defendants, who were stunned by the court's pronouncements, levelled fingers of accusation against the US which, they said, wanted to destroy the Turkish army through Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had become Washington's instrument. If such reactions were on the wild side, they nevertheless reflected the sorrow and anger that many felt at the sight of the generals who had been reduced to powerlessness. But what is it that made large segments of the Turkish public doubt the charges brought against their "courageous" army leaders. Was it all a fiction concocted by Erdogan. Was it a plot designed to get back at the men with stars on their epaulets and medals on their chests who had campaigned to isolate Erdogan at the time he was mayor of Istanbul and had him banned from public office and imprisoned on the grounds of a verse he recited in Siirt that allegedly constituted an incitement to violence and hatred, even though the poem, itself, had been published and was available in bookstores? Or is this a case of people who stubbornly refuse to open their eyes to the facts? Undoubtedly personal grudges helped feed a conflict that would have arisen anyway in light of the need to strike a new balance in government which, until the turn of the millennium, had been heavily dominated by the military. In this conflict, Erdogan was armed with a handy weapon: the need to comply with EU standards. But it had to work gradually, at least at first. A turning point came in 2008 when the AKP narrowly escaped a ban after Turkey's chief public prosecutor filed a suit with the Constitutional Court demanding the party's closure on the grounds that it sought to overturn the country's secularist values. The court confined itself to a stern caution and a cut in public funding for the party. From this point forward, Erdogan moved to the offensive, not just against the army, but also against the judiciary and the press. The Milliyet offered some insight into the nature of this campaign on 21 February 2011. Citing a British analysis, the newspaper revealed the magnitude of pressures that the AKP government brought to bear to clip the wings of the army, narrow the scope of free expression, and break the secularist hold on the judiciary by replacing judges with AKP supporters and sympathisers. A salient example is the notorious ODA TV case that followed a raid on the headquarters of the Internet-based news portal and detentions of its journalists. The newspaper held that this case, based on what it described as flimsy charges, demonstrated the lengths that the AKP was willing to go to stifle opposition and the right to opinion. "If Turkey continues like this, it will become like Russia," it concluded. In spite of the widespread criticism this move triggered, the AKP forged ahead. Haluk Ozdalga, AKP parliamentary deputy from Ankara and head of the parliament's environmental affairs committee, spoke of a package of reforms that aimed to exclude the army from politics and ban military officials from issuing political statements. The reforms would also link the army chief-of-staffs to the Ministry of Defence and bring the military courts and judiciary under the authority of the Ministry of Justice. "The military establishment must be stripped of all its privileges in the framework of the principles of justice and equality so that the country can join the ranks of countries that enjoy true democracy," he said. Still, to many it appears that the country is moving in the opposite direction and, indeed, that the level of democracy that had existed before the AKP's rise to power has begun to dwindle. There are writers and journalists who have been languishing behind bars for more than three years while increasingly one sees protest marches, thousands strong, bearing such banners as "Turkey is secular and will stay secular," "The army and the people: one hand," and last but no least, "Death to the AKP dictatorship!"
