On Monday the Constitutional Court will announce whether it will hear a complaint by Turkey’s chief prosecutor asking that Erdogan’s party be shut down on the grounds that it is undermining secularism.
The prosecutor also wants 70 party members, including Erdogan, banned from politics for five years. The case, if heard by the court, could take several months. The court has shut down four other pro-Islamic parties on similar grounds since the 1970s.
The prosecutor’s complaint specifically accuses Erdogan’s party of pushing Parliament to rescind a decades-old ban on wearing Islamic head scarves at universities. The headscarf legislation which is also being reviewed by the Constitutional Court triggered a barrage of criticism that Erdogan was trying raise Islam’s profile.
The indictment also accuses Erdogan’s government of harming the international image of Turkey as a secular republic.
Erdogan has insisted his party which won 46 percent in last year’s general elections is loyal to Turkey’s secular traditions, and his government says the headscarf
measure is aimed at expanding democracy and freedoms as part of Turkey’s EU membership bid.
If Erdogan’s party were to be shut down, a new party would likely be formed in its place as occurred when parties were shut down previously.
The threatened ban on Erdogan and others from politics would pose a trickier challenge. But since Erdogan’s party members have a majority in the 550-seat Parliament, they could still lead a new government. The current government, however, could push for a new constitutional amendment to cripple the judiciary’s powers and prevent the party’s closure, media suggested on Sunday.
Inevitably, the legal process will consume some of the government’s energy at a time when it is under pressure from the European Union to accelerate reforms in the field of freedom of speech. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said a widely expected reform for amending Article 301, curbing freedom of expression, would soon be sent to parliament.
The markets which have been heartened by reduced inflation, increased foreign investment and higher per capita income under Erdogan are expected to react sharply to any developments in the legal case on Monday.
The Turkish Industrialists and Business Association, which has openly criticized the government’s pro-Islamic practices, nevertheless said Sunday that any attempt to
shut down the ruling party was «unacceptable» in a democracy.
Erdogan on Sunday rejected accusations that his party was trying to impose fundamentalism. «The distance between the Justice and Development Party and fundamentalism and violence is like the difference between day and night,» Erdogan said in a speech in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa.
Hours later, Erdogan addressed another cheering crowd in the city of Mardin that chanted: «We are proud of you!» «The Justice and Development Party was borne out of the soul of the nation,» Erdogan said. «It is a center party that embraces entire Turkey. We will not stop, we will continue on our way.»
The indictment accuses Erdogan’s party of «taking gradual steps, having taken lessons from parties that have been shut down, to reach its goals and nullify reactions.» It says the party «aims to realize a model of society which takes religion as its reference.»
It cites statements by party leaders as evidence of the party’s violation of secular principles, and singles out a mayor who distributed 5,000 volumes of Quran in a western city and another mayor who converted a bus into a mobile mosque.
Erdogan himself banned alcoholic beverages at city-run coffee-shops in accordance with Islam when he was Istanbul’s mayor in the mid-1990s. He also served a
four-month jail sentence in 1999 for inciting hatred based on religious differences, by reading a poem at a political rally. The poem said: «Minarets are our bayonets, domes are our helmets, mosques are our barracks, believers are our soldiers.»
Erdogan’s government tried to criminalize adultery aftercoming to power but had to step back under pressure from the EU.
