Erdoğan again quick to attribute Syria audio link to Hizmet with no proof

Only hours after the posting online of an alleged conversation between some state officials about a possible incursion into Syria, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was quick to attribute the leak to the Hizmet movement, without showing a tiny shred of evidence.

Prominent legal experts have asked Erdoğan to prove his claim and warned that the claim would otherwise remain slander against a civilian group, which consists of millions of followers and sympathizers, and cast further doubt on the credibility of the prime minister.

Citing Pennsylvania -- in a veiled reference to Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen who inspires Hizmet -- as behind the leak, the prime minister said: “A meeting was held [among state officials] about the Süleyman Şah Tomb [in Syria]. They [Hizmet members] even leaked [the recording of] this meeting to YouTube. This is villainous, this is dishonesty. Who are you serving by doing audio surveillance of such an important meeting?” His remarks came on Thursday during an electoral rally in Diyarbakır. Gülen currently resides in Pennsylvania.

In the leaked audio, the voices of purportedly Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Güler are heard when discussing whether or not Turkey should conduct a military incursion into Syria ahead of Sunday's local elections.

Today's Zaman could not independently verify the authenticity of the audio nor could it determine when and how it was recorded. But news sources said the conversation was recorded at Davutoğlu's office at the Foreign Ministry on March 13.

YouTube was immediately blocked after the leak.

Oddly enough, while attributing the leak to the Hizmet movement, the prime minister avoided providing evidence to support his assertion that the faith-based movement leaked the audio. He probably had no such evidence at hand at that time because the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office had only initiated an investigation into the leak. The investigation is ongoing, and the office has not announced any conclusion yet.

According to legal experts and observers, the prime minister has violated the basic principle of presumption of innocence with his “quick conclusion” about Hizmet.

Former prosecutor Sacit Kayasu told Today's Zaman that if a statement is not based on a document or evidence, then it is called slander. “Regardless of his title, let him be a prime minister or a simple citizen, no one has the right to slander others,” he said, adding, “If the prime minister has any evidence [against the Hizmet movement], he has to take it to judicial bodies. He should not just accuse some people and stop; he should file a criminal complaint if he believes those people are guilty.” Kayasu also said it is the judiciary, and not the prime minister, that should decide if those accused are really guilty.

The former prosecutor also cautioned that groundless accusations raised by the prime minister against groups of people may lead to polarization in the society. “There is no meaning in raising tension among the people. The administrators of the state should be very careful,” he stated.

According to Mehmet Kasap, chairman of the Law and Life Association, Prime Minister Erdoğan, who calls on others to prove their claims against the prime minister and the government, never feels the need to back up his claims against others with strong evidence. “The prime minister has turned the Hizmet movement into a ‘target' for the past four months, and he is committing an extrajudicial execution against the movement,” Kasap noted.

He said it is odd that the prime minister has “found” the perpetrators of the leaked Syria audio even before the judiciary. “The judiciary had only launched an investigation into the leak when the prime minister announced the culprit. It is not possible to associate the stance of the prime minister either with the rule of law or principles of governing a state. How can he raise such a serious accusation without backing it with any evidence or document?” he asked.

The prime minister's attribution of the Syria audio leak to Hizmet has led to outrage on social media as well.

Abdullah Abdülkadiroğlu, the Ankara bureau chief of the Samanyolu Media Group, wrote on Twitter, somehow circumventing the ban on the website, that Erdoğan should work to find the real perpetrators of the leak instead of just putting the blame on some people without any proof.

Associate Professor İhsan Yılmaz, who teaches at Fatih University, said Prime Minister Erdoğan has for months been accusing the Hizmet community of spying in order to show himself to the public as a “victim” of the Dec. 17 corruption investigation, but has not provided any evidence to back his claim.

Some government members and pro-government newspapers also joined the prime minister in his slander against Hizmet.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç on Friday said he does not intend to accuse any person or group, but the leak of the audio recording on a possible Syria intervention by Turkey is a “damned act.” “Some [Hizmet] community members are now talking about establishing a political party. They are also talking about voting for the Republican People's Party [CHP] and the Nationalist Movement Party [MHP] in the [March 30 local] elections. Everybody admits that this [faith-based] movement has turned into a political movement. And we [the government] will talk to them with the language of politics. We will consider them as a political party, and not as people who are working for the sake of God,” he told reporters.

Indeed, this is not the first time the prime minister has linked Hizmet to some major unpleasant developments in the country, without providing any proof. Many say it is probably the easiest way for the prime minister to find a “scapegoat” to put the blame whenever he feels cornered by accusations of mismanagement, corruption or fraud.

For example, following the first day of the launch of the graft investigation, which became public on Dec. 17 of last year, Erdoğan quickly attributed the probe to the work of the parallel state, a reference he uses for the Hizmet movement.

In some recent incidents, Erdoğan accused Gülen and members of Hizmet of unleashing a campaign to undermine him ahead of Sunday's elections. Pushed to the corner in the aftermath of a stream of anonymous Internet postings suggesting his and his family members' involvement in corruption, the prime minister said the postings are the work of what he calls the “parallel state.” Gülen and Hizmet deny involvement in the postings and in police graft investigations impinging on Erdoğan and his family. Erdoğan, for his part, denies graft allegations.

In 2010, the prime minister was also quick to accuse the Hizmet movement of recording and spreading online a sex tape that forced former CHP Chairman Deniz Baykal to resign. Baykal refuted the claim at the time and put the blame for the emergence of the scandalous tape instead on Erdoğan's AK Party.

A voice recording, which was also posted online earlier this week, however, suggested that the prime minister was wrong in his assertion against Hizmet. The recording suggests that Erdoğan had planned the dissemination of the tape, which showed Baykal in an extramarital affair with a former party deputy. A Twitter user who posted the recording online claimed the recording had been seized from the computer of Erdoğan's advisor Mustafa Varank, hinting that the recording had been prepared by the prime minister's own man in the first place. In the recording, which seems to be a collage of various speeches, the voice attributed to Erdoğan instructs his men to capture Baykal in a sex act and spread the evidence across the media and the Internet.

Lawyers: Claims of parallel state baseless

A group of lawyers affiliated with the Independent Jurists Platform convened a press conference in front of the İstanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan on Friday and said the prime minister and his government members have been talking about a “parallel state” for three months but this speech lacks any legal basis.

Lawyer Bilal Çalışır, speaking on behalf of the group, said thousands of police officers and hundreds of prosecutors and judges have been displaced in the aftermath of the major graft probe without any proof or evidence to suggest their hand in any wrongdoing. “The legal and political crises we have been experiencing have led to the blocking of the parliamentarian regime and democratic system. The rule of law, which serves as the basis of the democratic system, has been crushed underfoot,” he stated.

Published on Today's Zaman, 28 March 2014, Friday