Gestapo-like governing aimed at with new intel bill: Main opposition CHP leader

ANKARA

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu addresses during his party’s parliamentary group meeting. DHA Photo

The government is seeking to build a Gestapo-like regime through a bill that will turn Turkey’s national spy agency into an intelligence coordination body working directly under the prime minister, according to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

“Turkey is rapidly turning into an intelligence state with the MİT [the National Intelligence Organization] Law,” CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said on April 15, addressing a meeting of his party’s parliamentary group.

Last week, Parliament’s General Assembly began deliberations over the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) bill that will expand the powers of the MİT to encompass additional missions both inside and outside the country. Known as the MİT Law, the proposal was withdrawn in February after President Abdullah Gül demanded major changes to the proposed text.

“The MİT’s blacklisting of CHP deputies has been published in a newspaper. A state cannot be ruled through intelligence [agencies]. It should be ruled with information, morality, merit and the law. In oppressive regimes, intelligence [agencies] give information to ruling party administrations,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“In Germany, they founded Gestapo. Was it legal? Yes, it was legal. But it didn’t give intelligence to the state, but rather the party. The same incident is taking place here. A new Gestapo model is underway. All my citizens should be careful,” he added.

The government’s initiative to boost the powers of the secret service is widely considered by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s critics as a bid to tighten his grip on the apparatus of state, amid a bitter power struggle against the movement of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen
“Looking at history, there were many who came to power through elections, but who then said ‘I got the votes, I will do whatever I want.’ The ballot boxes are important, but they are not sufficient on their own. There is the example of Hitler, there is the example of Mussolini. They both came to power through elections. But what happened then?” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

 “After a while, they [Hitler and Mussolini] began saying ‘I am the state and everything shall be under by authority.’ They started saying ‘What does judiciary mean?’” he added.

The CHP leader frequently accuses Erdoğan of ruling in an authoritarian and divisive manner.