Avvocato Assassinato. Democratic lawyers protest at the Turkish embassy in Rome at the killing of Tahir Elci. Demotix/Andrea Ronchini. all rights reserved.At the end of an
exclusive EU-Turkey summit that took place on November 29, 2015, the leaders of
28 European countries and the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu happily
declared that they have finally reached a deal concerning the flow of Syrian
refugees to Europe.
In return for a
$3.2bn aid package intended to improve the life of 2 million Syrian refugees in
Turkey, the Turkish government has agreed to increase border patrols at major crossing
points in order to prevent more refugees from entering Europe. As part of the
deal, the EU has also promised Turkey an easing of visa restrictions and
re-energized accession talks.
Although the
deal seems to provide a temporary solution for Europe’s ‘migrant crisis’ and
although Davutoglu praised it as “a new beginning”, anyone following Turkish
politics closely would agree that, in the long run, this deal does not bode
well for either the citizens of Turkey, or for the Syrian refugees it is intended
to protect. Nor, for that matter, does it bode well for the citizens of the EU
whose leaders have, once again, acted quite shortsightedly and opted for a
solution that would save the day, rather than for a sustainable solution that
would benefit the people of the Middle East as well as those of Europe.
A fateful week in Turkey
The EU deal came
in the wake of an already eventful week in Turkey. On November 28, 2015, Tahir
Elci, a prominent Kurdish lawyer, head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, and a
human rights activist, was killed with
a single gunshot to the head in Diyarbakir’s Sur neighborhood.
He was there to
give a press release asking for an end to the ongoing clashes and violence in
several Kurdish cities since the break of the ceasefire between the PKK
(Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and state security forces in July 2015. Elci was
facing trial for saying that the PKK is not a terrorist organization.
During a
television programme on October 20 he said, “Even though some of its acts have a
terrorist character, the PKK is an armed political movement. It is a political
movement with political demands and with a very strong backing in society”.
Since then, he had been the target of death threats and a defamation campaign
led by pro-government and mainstream media.
At the time of writing, the perpetrators of his murder are
still unknown. On November 30, after the release of video footage shot minutes
before and after the murder, Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair
of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party
(HDP) said, “From
our point of view, it is very clear that at that moment, in that area and in
that side street, no one was shooting except for the police officers. It is
certain that the bullet that killed Tahir Elci was fired by a police weapon.
For which purposes and from which weapon can only be revealed through a fair
investigation”. On the same day, a parliamentary motion by HDP,
calling for an investigation into Elci’s death was rejected
by votes from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Elci’s murder was
the last straw leading to increased tension in an already tense Turkey. On
November 24, 2015, Turkish F-16s shot down a Russian fighter jet, claimed to have
breached Turkish air space for 17 seconds. Only two days later, two new names
were added to Turkey’s ever-growing list of jailed journalists[1]:
Can Dundar, the editor in chief of the daily Cumhuriyet, and Erdem
Gul, the paper’s Ankara bureau chief, were arrested on charges of “espionage, divulging state secrets,
and aiding an armed terrorist organization”.
At the heart of
these charges lies leaked video footage
released by Cumhuriyet on May 29,
2015, showing trucks carrying ammunition and weapons allegedly sent by Turkey’s
National Intelligence Agency (MIT) to Syrian rebels (whose identity is still
contested). Following the publication of the video, in a television
interview with state broadcaster TRT in May, Erdogan vowed to punish Cumhuriyet
and Can Dundar, saying: “The individual who has reported this
as an exclusive story will pay a high price for this. I will not let this go”.
He kept his promise: both Dundar and Gul are now behind the bars, in pre-trial
detention.
Turkey and ISIS: friends or foes?
The arrest of two
journalists is unfortunately ‘old news’ in an increasingly authoritarian
Turkey, where thirty
journalists — mostly
Kurdish and leftists but also Gulenists — are currently in jail and where several TV
channels and newspapers were impounded by the government only last month.
What makes the
arrest of Dundar and Gul particularly important is its immediate relation to
Turkey’s stance in Syria. Following the downing of the jet, an angry Putin
described Turkey’s act as “a stab in the back” and accused Turkey of enabling
ISIS’ “barbarous, heinous ways” by purchasing ISIS oil, as well as by providing
ISIS members with the protection of the Turkish armed forces.
While Putin’s
claims might be exaggerated, it is no secret that Turkey has, for a long time,
been on amicable terms with ISIS. Journalist after journalist has written about
Turkey’s complicity with and alleged support for the group. In a research paper published in November 2014 (and updated in November
2015), David Phillips of Columbia University’s Institute for Human Rights put
together the allegations of Turkish and western media outlets, which range from
“providing military equipment to ISIS” and “training ISIS fighters”, to
“offering ISIS members medical services” and “assisting ISIS recruitment”.
Erdogan has
repeatedly rejected these accusations and invited journalists “to back their
allegations with hard evidence”. That is why Cumhuriyet has angered Erdogan so much: by publishing that video,
it left Erdogan little space to maneuver. The footage is so clear that, at a
reception he attended in November Erdogan reluctantly admitted that the trucks
were indeed carrying ammunition. He angrily asked: “Let’s say the trucks were carrying weapons. What
difference would it make? What’s the big deal? What matters is that they were
carrying humanitarian aid to our Turkmen brothers who were direly in need of
that aid”.
Western hypocrisy
Fixated on their
desire to keep the Syrian refugees out of Europe, western leaders have chosen
to disregard these allegations so far. While in the wake of the deadly Paris
attacks, western leaders vowed to take coordinated action against ISIS, to do
whatever it takes to eradicate it from the scene of history, all they did
afterwards was to heavily bombard the city of Raqqa, as if they had learned no
lessons from the decade-long ‘war on terror’ that did nothing but drag the
Middle East (and the world) into a growing spiral of violence.
One would have hoped,
by now, that they had understood that “more boots on the ground” only exacerbates
matters, and that a much better method in fighting ISIS would be to cut its
logistical, financial and military support.
To this day,
however, none of the western powers has publicly attempted to hold Turkey
accountable for its alleged support to ISIS, although several journalists have
raised many searching questions on this issue.
Desperate to get
Erdogan’s help in turning Turkey into a buffer zone between Europe and Syrian
refugees, the EU has kept a diplomatic silence on Turkey’s relationship with
jihadist groups, as well as its rapidly deteriorating record on human rights,
which was the focus of Tahir Elci’s life-long endeavor as a lawyer.
Likewise, the US,
eager to continue using its military air base in Incirlik, has chosen not to
confront Turkey, a supposed “ally” in its anti-ISIS coalition, on any of these
issues, although it has lately been exerting greater pressure on the question
of border controls with Syria. What the west fails to see, however, is that
Erdogan’s Turkey can offer only so much reassurance since it has long departed from
its policy of “zero problems with neighbours” and turned into a loose cannon that can
explode any time.
There was a time,
in the early 2000s, when Turkey was lauded as a glittering “Muslim democracy”
that other Muslim-majority countries could look up to. Those days are long
gone. Far from being a role model, today’s Turkey is nothing but an illiberal democracy, where democratically elected leaders, who
have no regard for the rule of law and civil liberties, routinely violate their
citizens’ basic rights, where opposition groups are immediately silenced and
where the media is continuously repressed.
Intent on
maintaining his power, president Erdogan does not hesitate to take every step
he deems necessary, whether it be the indiscriminate killing of Kurdish civilians in
besieged Kurdish cities, the confiscation of oppositional media outlets, or the prosecution and arrest of dissident journalists.
As seen with the
murder of Tahir Elci, the arrests of Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, and the downing
of the Russian jet, Erdogan’s “new Turkey” has morphed into a police-state,
characterized by a reckless, belligerent, sectarian foreign policy, and a
polarizing, discriminatory, repressive domestic policy.
If it keeps on
seeing Turkey only as a dumping ground where they can dispose of millions of
refugees—who, do not even have official refugee status under Turkish law—and if
it insists on ignoring the clearly alarming transformation of Turkey into an
authoritarian regime, the west might have to deal with an even more chaotic
Middle East in the not so distant future. A pluralist, democratic, peaceful
Turkey is indispensable for not only the region but also for the rest of the
world. Let us hope western powers will grasp this simple fact before it is too
late.
[1] According
to Reporters without Borders’ 2015 Press Freedom Index, Turkey ranks 149 out of
180 countries: https://index.rsf.org/#!/index-details/TUR
There is an acute and growing tension between the concern for safety and the protection of our freedoms. How do we handle this? Read more from the World Forum for Democracy partnership.