Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Soner Cagaptay

Turkey’s experiment with Islamists-turned-democrats might be coming to a tragic end. When the Justice and Development Party (AKP), rooted in Turkey’s Islamist opposition, came to power in Turkey in 2002 and declared that it had become a democratic movement, nearly everyone gave it the benefit of doubt. At that time, the party pushed for European Union (EU) accession, and followed a liberal reform agenda. The party also reached out to non-Islamist constituencies, suggesting a pluralist understanding of democracy and alleviating concerns about its Islamist pedigree.

Seven years later, the AKP’s democratic credentials are under doubt. On September 8 the AKP slapped Doğan Media, Turkey’s largest media group, composed of liberal and secular voices, with a record $2.5 billion tax fine. The AKP has also made a habit of arresting its opponents and critics, connecting them to the Ergenekon case that alleges a coup plot against the government. Turkey-watchers are waking up from a dream that started well in 2002, but has since become an illiberal nightmare.

The AKP’s slide away from its liberal stance began in 2005. As Turkey started accession talks with the EU, the AKP decided that the talks necessitated reforms that would erode its popular support, and shied away from pursuing Turkey’s EU dream. Following the party’s landslide victory in the 2007 elections, with 47 percent support, it moved from a pluralist to a majoritarian understanding of democracy. The AKP began to interpret its popular mandate as a blank check to ignore democratic checks and balances, and crack down on dissent, using the financial police to intimidate liberal businesses and the Ergenekon case to harass its opponents and critics.

When the AKP came to power, Turkey’s liberal business lobby group TUSIAD, whose members control a large chunk of the Turkish economy, supported the AKP’s liberal pursuit of the dream of a European Turkey. However, relations between TUSIAD and AKP soured as the new majoritarian-thinking AKP abandoned consensus building policies—for instance telling TUSIAD to “shut up” during the 2007 debate for a new constitution.

TUSIAD members have since come under fire from government-controlled tax police. For example, Doğan Group, a prominent TUSIAD member, was targeted after Doğan’s newspapers covered a court case in Germany that dissolved a Turkish-German charity for illegal transfer of funds to various Islamists in Turkey. Tax authorities selectively audited Doğan’s businesses for a year, and slapped him with a $600 million fine in February, alleging improper business dealings. AKP leader and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan then called on Turks to boycott Doğan’s media outlets, exposing the political nature of the fine.

The AKP’s stance against Doğan is a move against independent media. Turkish media continues to be free, but its independence is now checked by a government that wants political subservience.

The case against Doğan is also a move against liberal businesses. In this regard, Vladimir Putin’s heavy-handed treatment of his billionaire opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a telling example. When Putin jailed the Russian businessman on corruption charges, he sent other Russian oligarchs a strong message. Soon thereafter, many embraced self-imposed exile or turned into subservient figures like Roman Abramovich. The AKP’s actions against Doğan suggest a striking parallel to the Russian case. The new fine brings the total charges against Doğan to $3.1 billion, an amount larger than Doğan’s worth. Should Doğan meet Khodorkovsky’s fate or come close to it, the remainder of the country’s rich—the safety valve of pro-Western Turkey—will be hard-pressed not to take inspiration from Abramovich.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s intellectuals worry about Ergenekon. When the case opened in 2007, AKP watchers saw it as an opportunity for Turkey to clean up corruption and investigate coup allegations. But the case has become much more than that.

For starters, the case is nebulous. In a recent study, Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based analyst, described Ergenekon as a case that charges people “with membership of an organization which, as defined in the indictment presented to the court, does not appear to exist or to ever have existed.”

Instead of prosecuting criminals, the AKP is using this fluid case to persecute its opponents. Since 2007, AKP-controlled police have taken over 150 people, including university presidents, journalists, and women’s activists, into custody without evidence of criminal activity, only to release them after a few days of harsh questioning with no charges. Most have become docile intellectuals following their release. Meanwhile, some AKP opponents have been held in indefinite police custody for over a year, demonstrating to Turkey’s intellectuals the cost of not supporting the AKP.

Wiretaps are another tool for harassment of liberal and secular Turks. In Turkey, it is a crime to wiretap private conversations or publish conversations captured by the police. Yet pro-AKP media outlets regularly publish wiretapped conversations of the AKP’s opponents, compromising their private lives and even alleging that they are “terrorists” connected to Ergenekon. The AKP does not prosecute these crimes, which terrorize liberal intellectuals.

In truth, Ergenekon has devolved into a witch hunt, reminiscent of the McCarthy hearings in the United States. Most Turks refuse to even discuss the case on the phone or via e-mail, out of fear that just by speaking of it they might be implicated in it.

This state of fear and intimidation in Turkey is nightmarish. However, things could still end up well. Whenever Turkey goes through a political spasm, analysts warn about the collapse of Turkish democracy. Yet Turkey has pulled through numerous crises in the past, thanks to the balancing power of its fourth pillar. With coup allegations, arrest of government’s opponents, and a media crack down in the background, only free and independent media can clear things up. Never before has media independence been so crucial to Turkish democracy.