The Erdoğan mafia

İhsan Yılmaz

Turkey is now run by a mafia. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is at the top of this organization. He has created parallel financial, social, religious and legal structures to maintain this mafia organization. Since he was not able to fully control the judiciary, he has now created a new and extraordinary court system that is filled with loyal, partisan judges and it has now started to do whatever Erdoğan asks it.

Erdoğan is so intoxicated with power that he does not hide what he has been doing with these courts. A few weeks ago, he reportedly said that the government was now creating new courts that would deal with the Hizmet movement. Yesterday, he had a lapse and confessed that the recent detentions would also spread to other areas. How could he know the details of a judicial case? He referred to journalists, academics and businessmen affiliated with Hizmet. Depending on the polls, he may decide to detain these people before or after the presidential election.

For eight months he has been talking about a judicial coup against him, but with no proof. Even some of his supporters have started questioning the credibility of these allegations. He had to do something. Moreover, his cheap rhetoric on the Palestinian problem has been challenged and he has been asked to “walk his talk” or stop abusing the problem for domestic electoral considerations. Previously, he had a rhetorical monopoly over the issue but for the first time, he has begun to wish that the Palestinian issue was not talked about in Turkey. This is another reason for the recent detentions. He wants the public not to talk about the Palestinian problem and the Turkish diplomats who are in the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). So, he is now trying to distract the public's attention.

His new courts are very helpful in this. A single judge decides about everything and suspects can only object to these decisions in front of another single judge who is also in this newly created court structure. This is a kind of closed system and the suspects can be kept in prison for months before they see a serious court. The newly appointed judges are known for their pro-Erdoğan stance and some of them are the ones who have released Dec. 17 corruption suspects. Erdoğan is not only the prosecutor in the anti Hizmet case but he is the chief judge.

Published on Today's Zaman, 23 July 2014, Wednesday