Article Scan – March 11th: Erdoğan disowns trials that helped him tame military

Turkish Leader Disowns Trials That Helped Him Tame Military (By TIM ARANGOFEB)

A series of sensational trials that shook the Turkish military in recent years achieved what many regard as the most important legacy of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s more than a decade in power: sending the army back to its barracks and out of politics.

Now, though, Mr. Erdogan is acknowledging what many legal and forensics experts have long said: that, in a word, the trials were a sham. He has reversed himself not because of any pangs of guilt, analysts say, but for the simple reason that the same prosecutors who targeted the military with fake evidence are now going after him.

One document that was portrayed as laying out the details of a planned coup was discovered by an expert forensics witness to have been written with a version of Microsoft Office that did not exist at the time of the supposed plot. Some of the officers said to have been in the coup-planning meeting were in fact in Israel or England, or out at sea. A pharmaceutical company supposedly set to be taken over by the army after the coup was listed under a name it adopted years later.

The same prosecutors who used questionable evidence to help Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan end the Turkish military’s political power are now pursuing Mr. Erdogan himself.

MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/world/europe/turkish-leader-disowns-trials-that-helped-him-tame-military.html?_r=0

Why are AKP officials silent about Gülen? (by AHMET HAKAN)

Why isn’t there an all-out declaration of war from every corner of the AKP against the Cemaat?

– Why is Erdoğan the only leader at the front of the war against the Cemaat?
– Why are the heaviest attacks on Fethullah Gülen from Erdoğan, yet other AKP official are rather silent about it?

The answers can be summarized as following:

– The ministers, members of the Parliament and spokespersons are not sure how the war with the Cemaat will end… That’s why they disappear and try to observe from a distance how this war will end.

– They are scared… They think if they speak against the Cemaat, they can be put on Cemaat’s blacklist. Their biggest nightmare: their voice recordings leaked to the public…

more: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/why-are-akp-officials-silent-about-gulen.aspx?pageID=449&nID=63412&NewsCatID=502

It’s over (by Yavuz Baydar)

So Berkin Elvan is dead. He was 15 years old. On the night of June 15 last year, amid the heat of urban protests, he was hit by a gas canister to the head in İstanbul. Berkin was out buying a loaf of bread. He remained in a coma for 269 days and lost weight, going from 45 kilograms down to 16.

With his death, the number of casualties of the Gezi protests is now up to eight.

My sorrow is deep. My condolences go out not only to his family but beyond. After each and every loss, every pain inflicted and every crime against citizens which the perpetrators get away with, I believe it is time to pay condolences to dreams and hopes for a better, stable, predictable Turkey.

Never before in the history of the republic have we ever seen such a group of politicians who do not know how to stop shooting themselves in the foot. We are, it seems, in the midst of a mass suicide mission, the worst part being that the entire nation also risks being dragged into it.

http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/yavuz-baydar_341763_its-over.html