Hallmark of political Islam criticizes Erdoğan's policies

The Milli Görüş (National View) movement that gave birth to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has voiced its harshest criticisms against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP government, which is embattled by a serious corruption scandal. The Milli Gazete daily, the mouthpiece of the National View movement, and the Felicity Party (SP), the movement's political wing, have argued that the AKP led by Erdoğan has tarnished the prestige of Islam and accused Erdoğan of committing a hate crime against the Hizmet movement by describing it as a "parallel structure."

In reaction to former EU Affairs Minister and chief negotiator Egemen Bağış -- who allegedly mocked the Qur'an in a phone conversation with journalist Metehan Demir, in an audio recording leaked on March 18 -- Milli Gazete, voicing harsh criticisms against AKP policies, ran the headline, "This shame cannot be cleared by the ballot box," adding, "Sometimes keeping silent is better than talking."

SP leader Mustafa Kamalak has underlined that the only person who believes in Erdoğan's claims of a parallel structure is Erdoğan himself and states that in the international arena, Turkey is only spoken about in relation to the corruption and bribery claims.

Erdoğan, who parted ways with the Virtue Party (FP) led by National View founder Necmettin Erbakan and established the AKP in 2001, managed to secure votes from nearly all segments of society by saying he had changed and removed the shirt of the National View.

While the AKP was leaving its mark in the fields of economy, politics, the judiciary and diplomacy thanks to its pro-European Union policies, the FP, which had given birth to the AKP, was closed down on June 22, 2001, and then the share of the vote for the SP, the latest National View party, dropped to 2 percent.

However, the scandalous voice recordings leaked onto the Internet after a corruption investigation that broke on Dec. 17, 2013, allegedly show that many top executives of the AKP, including Erdoğan and several ministers and senior bureaucrats, have been involved in corruption and bribery. It is expected that the recent developments may cause a serious decrease in the AKP's electoral support and increase the number of votes for the SP.

In his election rally in Nevşehir on March 19, Kamalak recalled that since the municipal elections of 2009, several corruption, bribery, irregularity and tender-rigging claims had been raised against the municipalities controlled by the AKP.

Reacting harshly to the allegations against the Hizmet movement in a speech he delivered at an election rally in Kütahya on March 20, Kamalak asked: "Have you not been in power for 12 years? If there were such a parallel structure that is violating the rule of law and the Constitution, and attempts to meddle with the national will and damages the country's independence, then why haven't you done anything to prevent this in these 12 years?"

Selman Esmerer, the SP mayoral candidate for the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality, who is also a leading figure in the SP, argues that the corruption and bribery allegations against Erdoğan have damaged people's perception of Islam. Speaking on a TV program on March 19, Esmerer argued that it was impossible for Erdoğan to earn such huge wealth through legal channels and underlined that some circles have reaped unearned income from urban transformation projects in İstanbul.

The Yeni Asya Community, a faction of the Nursi movement, has also harshly criticized the AKP government's actions through news reports and headlines published in its newspaper, Yeni Asya. In reaction to a document prepared by the National Security Council (MGK) on Aug. 25, 2004, which persuaded the government to implement a series of measures to curb the activities of the Hizmet movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen, the Yeni Asya daily ran the headline "This is not democracy" on Dec. 4, 2013, and underlined that discrimination against people on the basis of their religious affiliations has continued to occur.

On a TV program broadcast on Jan. 29, İlhan Cevher, a columnist with Yeni Asya, showed a harsh reaction to the slander hurled at the Hizmet movement, adding, "If you attack religious communities, then the next target will be religious activities."

Kazım Güleçyüz, Yeni Asya's editor-in-chief, spoke to the Zaman daily on Feb. 2, expressing his reaction to evidence of a government-designed “pool media” created through funds raised by various businessmen to protect the government's interests. Güleçyüz also stressed: "Erdoğan, who has insulted religious scholar Fethullah Gülen by calling him a 'phony scholar' and 'false prophet' is acting with the mentality of those who declare other groups [other Muslims] to be unbelievers. It is impossible to develop brotherhood with such discourse. This discourse will harm the country and hurts the people's hearts. Millions of people have been hurt by this discourse."

In addition to those who have harshly criticized the government's policies since the Dec. 17, 2013 corruption operation, there also been some groups that have lent open support to Erdoğan. Upon the directions of the government, 97 NGOs, associations and religious communities have placed ads in several newspapers expressing their support for the Erdoğan government.

Columnist Ali Bulaç, who is an expert on religious movements, said, "The communities, associations and NGOs that have affiliated themselves with the government by saying ‘We need sizeable financial funds in order to organize big charity work' in the ads have lost their innocence and dynamism and become involved in corruption."

Arguing that the government provides funds to religious communities in order to keep them under control, Bulaç added: "The government has allocated land, buildings and financial aid and granted public tenders to these NGOs and religious communities. However, they are no longer able to act as NGOs or religious communities because these NGOs and religious communities and associations have lost steam and become unable to make rational decisions. They have just become immobile and desensitized their consciousness with government power. They are afraid that the government might cut off their financial resources. They think they are still nongovernmental and yet publish ads supporting the government."

Published on Cihan, 24 March 2014, Monday