The Nose of the Dragon
The human rights lawyer, Orhan Kemal Cengiz, who is representing three Christians tortured and murdered in the eastern province of Malatya last year has asked for police protection after being subjected to threats and intimidation. The authorities, however, are dragging their heels on granting him protection despite urgent appeals by Amnesty International. At least one newspaper has printed false information about him, accusing him of being involved in the murders himself. Some of the information included in the news article, Cengiz asserted, could only have been obtained through interception of his telephone and electronic communications regarding the case.
The implication is that the Malatya killings were planned by a shadowy crime organization dubbed Ergenekon that is linked to Turkey’s paramilitary forces and is believed to have support high up in the state apparatus (what the Turks call the deep state). Evidence appears to show links between such forces and the killing of a Catholic priest in Trabzon in 2006, the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink by an ultranationalist youth in January 2007, and other violent actions like blowing up a bookstore in Semdinli in November 2005 that resulted in one death and was initially attributed to the PKK.
In the latter case, witnesses saw two military (gendarmerie) intelligence officers at the scene. They were arrested and tried, but in May 2007 the Supreme Court of Appeals voided their 39-year sentences. It remains to be seen whether the spate of recent Ergenekon-linked arrests will result in actual prosecutions and sentences. This requires strong determination on the part of the elected regime which seems in recent years to have lost the will to face off against these powerful forces that challenge it’s authority.
Cengiz calls the deep state “a power like a dragon that doesn’t even bother to hide… This dragon showed its nose for the first time in the Semdinli case… The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government will never be able to wield power, although being elected … with a majority vote. There is an illness and this illness will … catch hold and [only] let this government go if it remains inactive.”
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