Turkey has been in a state of emergency since the failed coup attempt last July and thousands of people have been jailed on politically related charges.
The Turkish government has issued state of emergency decrees, dismissing more than 120.000 people from public service. More than 50.000 people were arrested including 17.000 women with small children that needed to be taken care of.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been waging a relentless war against followers of the faith-based Gülen movement in Turkey and abroad for the past several years, has said in April that Gülen movement sympathizers in the country will not enjoy the right to life.
Speaking at a rally in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak Erdoğan said: ‘We are purging every Gülenist in the army, in the police and in state institutions. And we will continue cleansing [these organizations of] them because we will eradicate this cancer from the body of this country and the state. They will not enjoy the right to life. They divided this nation, this Ummah [Islamic nation]. Our fight against them will continue until the end. We won’t leave them wounded.’
More than 50 people were already dead due to the torture and ill-treatment in detention centers and prisons as part of the government’s systematic campaign of intimidation and persecution.
The recent report, titled “Suicides that Took Place During Emergency Rule,” showed that 35 people who or whose relatives have been affected by the post-coup purge, either by losing their jobs or by being arrested, due to their alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, have committed suicide.
Given the historical background of the mass massacres and atrocities of the country, global policy makers should be alarmed with the possibility of the coordinated plans of an elimination of an identified group of people in Turkey.
It should be noted that there is a clear relationship between the political, ethnic, religious, and economic landscape of a given country or territory, and the eventual occurrence of a genocide. While the countries with democratic regimes are less likely to experience genocide, the countries with autocratic regimes are more likely to experience it.
President Trump should be concerned with potential human rights disasters in Turkey considering the consequences of the U.S Governments backing the dictatorships in the past. Keeping in mind the U.S Government spending $30 billion a year on foreign aid for global stability, a stable ‘democratic’ Turkey should be U.S first priority and best interest.
It is important to recognize that major episodes of political violence occur consistently over time and this is exactly what’s happening in Turkey now.
When discussed today in Turkey, it is the grim reality that no Turkish leadership has been so destructive and unstoppable when presented with the opportunity to seize power since the ‘Union and Progress Party’ leadership of the last century.
Political atrocities and mass massacres often occur as the end result of complex processes that start when revolutionaries dissolve an old regime and try to construct a new one and a pure society according to their ideological standards. Regarding with the new standards of the Erdogan regime, Gulen followers, secular liberals, Alevis and Kurds might be the target of the potential new born state ideology and violence. Remember that Erdogan believes he is about to finalize the last steps of an Islamist revolution in Turkey, by claiming that it’s too late for the secular democrats to change that new reality after it came out that Referendum results were rigged.
The recent photos of the Turkish Commander in Chief Gen. Hulusi Akar, which were revealed by Ret. Admiral Turker Erturk at odatv.com last week, which depict the Genaral with his Islamist ties in late 70’s indicate that he would be the confidante of Erdogan viewing the world from a similar ideologic perspective.
President Trump should be well informed about the political history of Turkey.
Keeping the past alive may help to prevent new atrocities in the future.