THREATS, PROFILING NOW THE ‘NORM’ IN TURKEY’S CIVIL SERVICE
Legal Monitor Worldwide
December 15, 2014 Monday
The secretary-general of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Gursel
Tekin, said in a statement on Nov. 6 that members of the Constitutional
Court and their families are being threatened by members of the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK Party). His statements prompted
discussions regarding Turkey’s problems with political threats,
coercion and blackmail.
This statement came after the head of the Constitutional Court, Ha?im
K?l?c, recently announced that the court was considering reaching a
verdict regarding individual applications requesting to lower Turkey’s
10 percent election threshold. K?l?c reportedly spoke with a Turkish
media outlet about the forthcoming verdict, and how it must be applied
in the upcoming elections scheduled for June 2015.
Ergun Ozbudun, a professor of constitutional law at ?stanbul ?ehir
University, told Today’s Zaman that “even if the high court rules that
the 10 percent threshold has led to a violation of personal rights,
this would not lead to the annulment of the [threshold law].”
Tekin’s remarks bring to the surface a dark and dangerous side of
Turkey’s civil service sector, where threats, blackmail and profiling
have always have been used as tools of coercion and intimidation.
Selim Sava? Genc, an associate professor of international relations
at Fatih University, told Today’s Zaman that “in a normal country,
threats — or even rumors of threats — towards members of the
judiciary would cause the ruling party to fall.”
“In truly democratic countries, the profiling or threatening of
normal citizens by the government would be considered a scandal. But
in Turkey, rumors of threats to members of the highest court in Turkey
are considered a simple event,” said Genc.
CHP deputy Faruk Lo?o?lu also spoke to Today’s Zaman, saying, “The
separation of powers in politics is being torn apart.”
Underlining that the judiciary must be independent, Lo?o?lu, a former
ambassador to the US, went on to say, “Unfortunately, there is a
deepening and widening case of abuse of fundamental human rights
in Turkey.”
“Blackmailing, threatening or even giving suggestions to the
Constitutional Court is not acceptable in a state governed by the
rule of law,” he said.
Profiling was commonplace during the Feb. 28, 1997 “postmodern coup.”
A clandestine body within the military known as the West Study Group
(BCG) went so far as to make teachers of courses in national security
keep tabs on their students and their families. However, profiling
became a constitutional crime with the Sept. 12, 2010 referendum. In
September 2014, documents acquired by Today’s Zaman revealed that the
Ministry of Family and Social Policy engaged in profiling practices
deemed “illegal” by the state. The ministry reportedly recorded its
employees with specific codes if they were deemed to be affiliated
with the faith-based Hizmet movement.
Similar to practices of the single-party era in Turkey when Greek,
Armenian and Jewish citizens were classified with numbers one, two
and three, respectively, the AK Party reportedly uses the code “111”
for classification of people allegedly affiliated with the Hizmet
movement, a faith-based group inspired by the teachings of Islamic
scholar Fetullah Gulen.
It was revealed in November that the Interior Ministry profiled not
just prospective police officers but also their family members —
classifying them according to their ideological, social and religious
affiliations.
According to documents obtained by Today’s Zaman, the intelligence
department of the National Police Department apparently profiled
thousands of university graduates aspiring to become police officers,
leading to the unjust elimination of many candidates.
The documents show that, in a move that clearly violates their right
to privacy, profiling extended beyond prospective police officers to
members of their families. The documents suggest that most of the
newly recruited police officers were employed owing to references
from AK Party deputies or bureaucrats in the Interior Ministry.
To add insult to injury, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office
recently rejected a legal complaint about profiling by a public
institution on the grounds that it is considered a “normal” procedure.
The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office rejected the complaint made
by Y?ld?r?m Kaya, a former head of the Education Personnel Union
(E?itim-Sen), who protested the government’s profiling of him. The
prosecutor’s office claims that what Kaya calls “profiling” was simply
detailed security investigations into candidates for the police force.
Mehmet Ta?tan, the prosecutor in Y?ld?z’s case, announced that as long
as people are prospective police officers, it cannot be considered a
crime to keep a profile of people with whom the candidate communicates
— it simply draws a picture of his social environment. However,
in his verdict of “no prosecution,” the prosecutor also confirmed
that the documents verifying instances of profiling, which appeared
in the media, were genuine.
President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has, for over a year now, continued
to unjustifiably insult and threaten the Hizmet movement. Erdo?an
has blamed the movement, which he refers to as the parallel
structure/state,” for several graft probes that rocked the government.
Since December of last year, Erdo?an and the AK Party have relentlessly
targeted the Hizmet movement, which they see as the driving force
behind two major graft probes made public on Dec. 17, 2013. The graft
investigation implicated not only businessmen close to the government,
bureaucrats and four former ministers of the Cabinet but also Bilal
Erdo?an, the president’s son. 2014 Legal Monitor Worldwide.