Justice in Turkey tested by sons-in-law

A psychological warfare that components of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) have recently started is a new perception operation. They started publicizing the full name of pilot Major O.K., who played a huge role in the prevention of the coup attempt on July 15, 2016 by informing the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) that Undersecretary Hakan Fidan would be kidnapped. 

FETÖ members have not given up on their aim of staging a coup d’état and remove President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In old Turkish legends there are slaves called “mankurt” and they are forced to go mad. These FETÖ members are the “fankurts,” whose consciences have been removed by Fethullah Gülen. 

We have seen what they are capable of doing, like in the coup attempt and in the assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov. For this reason, fighting FETÖ is not Erdoğan’s personal issue, but it is a survival issue for the Republic of Turkey. 

No doubt FETÖ members are looking for an opportunity for a new coup and an assassination attempt on Erdoğan. For this reason, we should be careful about perceptions created in the fight against FETÖ. For instance, a sons-in-law debate is going on. The releases of the son-in-law of Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş and the son-in-law of former Parliament Speaker Bülent Arınç have caused a tremendous breakdown. A new branch has been borne like the penal code, the family law, the commerce law or international law; this one is the law of the sons-in-law. 

Doğan Holding’s Ankara representative Barbaros Muratoğlu was arrested on Dec. 1, 2016 upon a statement by confessor lawyer Ramazan Aykış. He is under arrest for links to FETÖ. 

He was accused of having the ByLock mobile application on his phone. He did not. He was accused of communicating with people who had ByLock apps on their phones. These were proven to be group messages sent during holidays and the answering service of a mobile phone company. How would you know whether the person who has called you has a ByLock app on his phone before even this application was known publicly? Was there such a technology and Muratoğlu did not use it? 

He was arrested because he had a photo with Gülen in which he has two buttons on his jacket buttoned up – considered a sign of respect in Turkey - but this was not written in the indictment. Other colleagues in the same picture are now engaged in a serious fight against FETÖ, but this opportunity was not granted to Muratoğlu. 

Aykış said in a court hearing that his statement was written wrongly in the minutes. In the last hearing, the newly-appointed prosecutor asked for the continuation of the arrest based on a file that was decided to be separated, regarding it as new evidence. Thus, in all the hearings up to now, the charges have not been proven right. 

Well, is Muratoğlu still in jail because his father-in-law is not Kadir Topbaş? Do the scales of justice have different weights for different people? 

I wish we had consumed our energy that we used to make Muratoğlu a FETÖ member for fighting real FETÖ members. 

I’m not saying that the criteria used for sons-in-law should be used for Muratoğlu. But I want to believe the esteemed statesman Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ when he said: “These practices demonstrate the rule of law in Turkey. Nobody has privileges. The claims that ‘some people enjoy favoritism’ are the biggest insults to the Turkish judiciary.” I expect the words of the Justice Minister to be administered. The path to that passes from equality of the judiciary. We are experiencing the test of the judiciary with sons-in-law. 

I am not going into a business of reminding the courts of law and justice. I am aware that the courts are under an enormous social media attack because of FETÖ trials. If they release anybody on parole based on judicial evidence they are lynched on social media. Well, then we better let the social media conduct the trials. Those people on social media were advocating Gülen only a couple of years ago. In the stage we have come to, the courts and their practices need to be defended too. 

The judiciary in Turkey is being tested by sons-in-law. The day is the day of fighting the real FETÖ members, not the day of inventing fake members of FETÖ and thus weakening the fight.