In Turkey, Bitter Feud Has Roots in History

In Turkey, Bitter Feud Has Roots in History - NYTimes.com

As Turkey’s governing party braces for a high court ruling that could close it down and bar many of its members from politics, party officials like to talk about what they did that caused so much trouble.
“Watch out, you’re talking to a sinner,” said Sadullah Ergin, an official in the party, Justice and Development, whose founders, some of them former Islamists, now want Turkey to be a more open society for practicing Muslims.

Mr. Ergin’s offense, detailed in a more than 160-page indictment of the party and its officials that has paralyzed Turkish politics since it was filed in March, was saying that a ban on women wearing head scarves in universities violated human rights, adding his signature to a draft law that helped cancel it and talking about it on a television talk show.

Most of all, his crime lay in his association with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the party, known as A. K., the initials of its Turkish name. With its control of the presidency, the Parliament and the government, the faction has come further than any other in modern Turkey in breaking the grip of the secular establishment on power.

The indictment accuses the party of trying to turn Turkey, a secular democracy, into an Islamic state, a charge that Mr. Ergin contends is “political, not legal.”

Even Turkey’s liberals, who would be among the first to speak out against Islamic activism in government, agree with that assessment. Many see the case as the last stand by Turkey’s secular old guard — a powerful class that includes the military and judiciary — that is against the ropes and trying desperately to hang on to power. The military’s attempt to stare down Mr. Erdogan last year led to a pro-A. K. retaliation at the ballot boxes, and now it has turned to its judicial allies to try to stop Mr. Erdogan. A ruling by the constitutional court is expected in the next few months.

“They are playing their last game,” said Baskin Oran, a professor of international relations at Ankara University. “The military is no longer able to make coups. The last line to hold onto is the constitutional court.”