JUDICIAL SCANDAL: A TEST CASE FOR TURKEY
Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
Global Research
December 12, 2010
Is Turkey making progress in the democratization process? Has the
September referendum led to reform of the judiciary? Who really rules
Turkey? These are some of the questions raised, albeit implicitly,
by a recent court case in Istanbul which has become a cause celèbre.
The case involves a Turkish-born German citizen, Dogan Akhanli, a
former leftist opposition figure who had been imprisoned and tortured
under the military coup regime in the 1980s. After his release and
successful flight to Germany in 1991, he received refugee status
and later citizenship. In the last twenty years he has lived with
his wife and family in Cologne, working as a writer, translator,
and social activist.
His primary concern, both in his writings and his daily activity, has
been to work through the cases of genocide in the twentieth century,
emphatically including the Young Turks’ genocide of the Armenians
in 1915. In the last book of his trilogy, Die Richter des Juengsten
Gericht (The Judges of the Last Judgment, 1999), he dealt with the
Armenian genocide, the first Turkish novelist to do so.
Raising the issue of the 1915 genocide is against the law in Turkey,
specifically, a violation of Article 301 of the legal code, which
forbids belittling or insulting “Turkishness.” When he arrived at
Istanbul airport on August 10, to visit his dying father, Akhanli was
immediately arrested by the authorities. But he was not charged with
violating Article 301. Instead, he was accused of having participated
in a case of armed robbery of a currency exchange shop in 1989,
during which the shopkeeper was killed. After his arrest at the
airport, Akhanli was thrown into jail. Although the defense hoped
for a speedy trial that might begin by September, the authorities
kept him in prison for four long months. During that time he wrote
letters that he planned to give his father as soon as they could
meet. Shortly before his trial opened on December 8, his father died,
without having seen his son. Akhanli’s request for a prison leave to
attend the funeral was denied.
Travesty of Justice The entire process, from his arrest to the trial,
was characterized by heavy-handed tactics which fly in the face of
justice. The prosecution had buttressed its case on the testimony of a
witness who had identified Akhanli when interrogated in 1992. He later
officially retracted his statements, asserting in an affidavit that
they had been obtained under duress, i.e. through torture. Two other
witnesses, sons of the murdered man, who had also been interrogated
in 1992, later denied statements attributed to them, adding that they
had never been shown photographs of Akhanli for identification. When,
for the first time, they were shown photos of the accused on August
13 of this year, they said they did not recognize him as one of the
perpetrators.
Finally, when the Turkish investigators 21 years after the fact (!)
examined fingerprints on two bags that the robbers had left at the
scene of the crime, they found none of them matched Akhanli’s.
On the basis of these facts, defense lawyer Haydar Erol repeatedly
lodged formal complaint against the arrest and demanded that Akhanli
be released. Three times the court rejected the complaint and continued
to hold him in a high security prison in Tekirdag. Not only: following
the first complaint, the prosecution expanded the charges against
him to include a political crime: it claimed that he had planned the
robbery in order to finance a terrorist organization in its attempt
to overthrow the Turkish government. Akhanli’s comment on his absurd
status was: “If I were not threatened with a life sentence, I could
really laugh about my situation. I see myself like the character
in Franz Kafka’s novel, Josef K. — not only because I was arrested
though innocent.” Kafka’s novel, The Trial, recounts the drama of an
innocent man taken prisoner who, entrapped in a maze of burocratic
procedures and intrigues, is incapable of ever finding out what is
happening to him.
International Mobilization Akhanli knew before he left for Istanbul
that he was on a watch list and might be arrested, but he went ahead
with his plans, determined to see his father before he died. As
a precaution, he alerted associates from Recherche International
and Tueday (a Turkish human rights group), as well as friends, and
arranged for them to respond if he were detained. As he told me in a
phone call on the eve of his departure, I and others would be informed
if anything were to happen.
In fact, as soon as the news of his arrest reached his associates,
they mobilized his legal defense and a public solidarity campaign
which ultimately tipped the balance in favor of his release.
The campaign to secure Akhanli’s freedom targeted those political
institutions which had the power to influence events. Letters of
protest flowed into the Turkish Justice Ministry, copies of which
were also sent to the Turkish Embassy in Berlin. At the same time,
protesters flooded German Foreign Minister Westerwelle’s office
with demands that he intervene to secure the freedom for Akhanli —
after all, a law-abiding German citizen. Westerwelle’s office seems
to have taken the messages seriously, as indicated by the lengthy and
articulate responses it issued; and the German consulate in Istanbul
did at least contact the prisoner and his lawyers. The Turkish Embassy
in Berlin, on the contrary, adopted a position of sheer denial,
rejecting any and all insinuations of a political dimension to the
case, and reiterating the catalogue of alleged “facts” pertaining to
the armed robbery and murder.
At the same time, an impressive array of intellectuals, both Turkish
and German, assembled to circulate petitions demanding his release,
flanked by mass actions in the form of solidarity meetings as well
as street demonstrations in Berlin, Cologne, and Frankfurt.
Significantly, the Armenian Community in several German cities
officially joined the mobilization. Among those leading the campaign
were Guenter Wallraff, an author and well-known investigative
journalist; author Guenter Grass; filmmaker Osman Okkan, and others.
On December 6, a group of Turkish intellectuals issued an appeal for
his freedom, signed, among others, by Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk.
When the trial opened in Istanbul, a delegation of 20 observers
from Germany was on hand, officially representing the German PEN
center, the Union of German Writers, the Academy of Arts Berlin,
the Union of Democratic Jurists, the Austrian Writers’ Union, and
several human rights groups, including Akhanli’s Tueday, KulturForum
Tuerkeideutschland, Medico International, as well as the Bundestag
factions of Die Linke and the Buendnis 90 – Die Gruene parties.
Amnesty International also sent an observer.
It was this massive show of support especially from Germany, evidently
unexpected by the Turkish authorities, which was to be decisive.
“Without the huge attention that Dogan’s arrest drew,” said Wallraff,
“they would certainly have sentenced him to life imprisonment. He
would have become one of those prisoners whom the Turkish government
at some time, on some likely occasion, would have pardoned.”
Prior to the session, a large crowd gathered outside the courtroom
sporting posters demanding “Justice for Dogan Akhanli” while members
of the delegation briefed the press. Inside the courtroom, the head
judge, a hardliner, was “visibly strained,” according to a Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung report, but, evidently impressed by the show of
international support for the accused, behaved in a civil manner –
quite out of profile. Akhanli, who had repeatedly stated his innocence
to the magistrate, chose not to speak at all, and had a statement
read for him. His lawyer Erol said his client’s silence was a protest
against the fact that he was not allowed to visit his dying father.
His lawyers again went on record rejecting any and all charges. The
judge, given the lack of credible evidence, and having no grounds
for suspicion that the defendant would commit a crime, was forced to
announce his release, and grant him permission to leave the country,
pending continuation of the trial next March. Later that evening,
Akhanli was set free and made his way to his home town where he could
join relatives in mourning the loss of his father. He is expected to
return to Germany sometime in December.
Turkish Denial Policy On Trail It is clear to those who have moved
in Akhanli’s defense that the charges against him were hoked up, and
that his only “crime” was his principled commitment to lay bare the
historical facts of the 1915 genocide, in the pursuit of justice,
truth, and recognition. As his publisher Regip Zarakoglu put it,
“They can’t punish Dogan Akhanli for his books, so they’re trying to
attribute another crime to him.”
Wallraff, according to Hurriyet on December 8, said he thought that
a 2003 work by Akhanli, Talaat Pasha Minutes, was the reason behind
his detention.
Although a growing number of Turks in civil society are opening
their eyes to the historical truth and seeking ways to deal with it,
the hard-core Kemalists can react only with brute force whenever the
issue is touched. The reason lies not only in fears of demands for
costly reparations along the model of German payments to Holocaust
victims, or in fears of claims on historical Armenian territories; the
nationalists reject acknowledgement also because their very identity
is inextricably linked to the mythology associated with nation founder
Ataturk, who laid down the official line on the 1915 events. Although
the Young Turk leaders were tried, convicted, and most sentenced to
death by a Turkish court in 1919-1920 for their responsibility in the
deportations and massacres that led to the genocide, after coming to
power in 1923 Ataturk rehabilitated them post mortem. The remains of
Talaat Pasha, who had been assassinated in Berlin by an Armenian in
1921, were returned to Turkey where he was given a hero’s burial.
Streets named after Young Turk leaders bear witness to this
incontrovertible fact that the Turkish republic was founded on a tragic
falsehood. The articles introduced into the legal code (later Art. 301)
condemning any mention of the genocide as an offense to “Turkishness”
are a logical consequence of this policy.
So Akhanli, who has been an outspoken proponent of the demand for
Turkish recognition of the genocide, qualified as a likely candidate
for harassment.
Dogan knew what might await him in Turkey, as he had alerted friends,
but he nonetheless nurtured hopes that perhaps the situation in his
homeland had improved over the last 20 years. As Der Spiegel reported
in its December 6 issue, Akhanli said he had reckoned with an arrest
when he flew to Turkey. “But also, that I would be released after
a short while and not locked up possibly for life,” he was quoted
saying. “I thought that my country was freer, more democratic today.”
The weekly went on to report that Akhanli viewed the violence,
arbitrariness, and torture existing in Turkey as connected to the
policy of denial regarding 1915. And his recent odyssey is proof
positive of this fact.
One should view the entire affair against the backdrop of internal
political conflict in Turkey. As seen in the recent referendum,
as well as in a series of legal cases brought against leading
Turkish personalities — including military figures — accused of
plotting against the State, the hardliner faction, which is linked
to the notorious Ergenekon apparatus, is facing an existential
threat. Its control over the justicial apparatus is being challenged
in particular. And it is fighting back. Akhanli’s lawyer Erol stated,
“Unfortunately, it is not here a matter of solving a crime. It is a
show of force on the part of revanchist circles in Turkey.” Halil
Oezcan of the Turkish PEN organization had this to say: “It was
clear from the beginning that it would be difficult to put the 1980
putschists, the generals, on trial…. In the Akhanli case,” he went
on, “we see that, not only have we not succeeded in putting them on
trial, but also that none other than a victim of the [1980] military
putsch is jailed. With this, the putschists and their followers want
to demonstrate that they still wield juridical power and can convict
people at will. And indeed they can.”
But can they, really? The pressure which has come down on Turkey in
this case must have been significant. Although the German authorities
have not publicized their actions, it is hard to imagine that
Akhanli would have been released on the first day of trial without
some behind-the-scenes intervention. More than government action,
the pressure mounted by the defense committee succeeded in putting
the public spotlight on the case, as indicated by a two-page spread
by the weekly of record Der Spiegel. Since the DecEMBER 8 session,
the case has grabbed the attention of the international press,
including in Turkey.
If public and political pressure continues to grow — and it
will –, it is considered likely that Akhanli will be acquitted,
perhaps during the next trial date on March 9, 2011. That happy event
would constitute a signal defeat, not only for the political forces
identified as Kemalist revanchists etc., but for the denial policy
laid down by Ataturk regarding 1915. Dogan Akhanli is a well-known
and respected novelist, who has courageously spoken out about the
Armenian genocide, and his notoriety and stature will only be enhanced
by this recent attempted frame-up. In addition to his writing activity,
he has been engaged in a continuing process of education about the
Armenian genocide and other crimes against humanity in the 20th
century. This work, carried out through his Recherche International
and Tueday associations, has taken shape in seminars, conferences, and
educational trips, for example, to Berlin, where landmarks of these
events are to be seen. Scholars on various aspects of the historical
events — the Armenian genocide, the suppression of the Pontic Greeks,
the plight of other minorities like the Assyrians, the drama of the
Kurds, the role of Germany — have contributed to such seminars, and
Akhanli has personally led tours through the historical sites. Prior
to his arrest, he was involved with a number of Armenian, German,
Kurdish, and Turkish intellectuals in expanding this work, to engage
Turks and Armenians in particular in joint historical and personal
biographical research aimed at reaching an understanding of the 1915
genocide, and seeking recognition and reconciliation on that basis.(1)
Such a collective effort is particularly effective in Germany, which
hosts the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey. Furthermore,
Germany’s own involvement as an ally of the Young Turk regime has been
extensively documented in Foreign Ministry archives from World War I
and published. This mass of governmental documentation facilitates
the task of establishing the historical record and educating the
broader public, including Germany’s citizens of Turkish descent,
as to what really occurred.(2)
Dogan Akhanli is absolutely right in believing (as Hrant Dink did) that
the democratization process in Turkey can only develop in conjunction
with Turkish acknowledgement of the genocide in 1915. Only when
official Turkey recognizes the truth and finds the appropriate means
to morally redress the crime can justice be accorded the victims and
the burden of collective guilt be lifted from the collective Turkish
consciousness. When that time comes, there will no longer be any need
to persecute journalists and authors who study Turkey’s past.
If the Turkish judicial authorities thought they could make an
example of Akhanli and, by inflicting severe punishment on him,
terrify anyone else dealing with the Armenian question into silence,
they were dead wrong. The lesson of Akhanli’s case, which neither the
Turkish government nor the judiciary can ignore, is that such illegal
prosecution will no longer be tolerated today. It will backfire,
further fuelling the process of social and political awareness among
Turkish intellectuals and others — at home and abroad – who insist
that Turkey’s past will continue to haunt its elite until they find
the courage to face it.
1. See my article Imprisonment of Human Rights Activist Puts Turkish
Establishment on the Dock 2. See Armenocide for documentation
The author can be reached at mirakdotweissbachatgooglemail.com
From: A. Papazian