Those who were rejoicing back then are now mourning

When I learned that the former prosecutor Zekeriya Öz was wanted by Turkish police and that he fled abroad, I remembered the late İlhan Selçuk, a veteran journalist who was one of Öz’s victims. Öz was the prosecutor of past coup trials and now he is sought by police over coup charges for launching the Dec. 2013 corruption probes. 

The day İlhan Selçuk fell victim to Zekeriya Öz was March 21, 2008. 

I remember the police raiding Şelçuk’s house in the early hours of the day; the cruelty and arrogance of the police chiefs and the prosecutors who sent them there, the way they looked at us as if implying, “Your turn will also come” and their overconfident attitudes… 

I also remember the infamous advice Selçuk, after spending 40 hours in detention, gave to prosecutor Öz who charged him. What did Selçuk tell Öz that day? He said, “That day will come; what you have done today will become a boomerang and return to you...” 

It has only been seven years. Well, here it has returned. My dear Zekeriya Öz, the all-powerful of yesterday…Now, does it suit you to pack your things and run away? Does it go well with you? Now, do you remember our colleague İlhan Selçuk, the brave person who did not run away even though he knew he would be detained, in his 80s? 

You took him from his house. You charged him with planning to stage a coup d’état… You even immediately leaked to the media a private joke he had made to his friend on the phone… In those days, many people drooled, with ecstasy and lust… Now you are being battered by your former partner, the “pool” media. 

Now, I am looking and seeing that those conspiracy paths have parted. They used to make conspiracies together; now they are conspiring against each other. 

In the former “house of Zekeriya” is now mourning; in the “new Zekeriya house,” there are festivities organized. 

The unconscious, blind “Zekeriya festivity organizer,” have you ever thought of this? 

If you make prosecutors into so much of “yes-men” to yourself; if you militarize the justice system to this extent; if you trample on the expression “staging a coup d’état” so much; if you pronounce the phrase “forming an organization with the aim of committing crime” so easily; if you especially use these accusations so subjectively…

Did you ever think that when the time comes tomorrow, others would use these charges as arbitrarily as you have used them? 

Did it ever cross your mind, in a country where everybody was able to accuse anybody this easily and arbitrarily of being a “coup stager,” how others would interpret these sentences? Did you ever ask yourself these questions? 

It was this same Zekeriya Öz who was the all-powerful prosecutor of yesterday, who fled to Armenia on the night of Aug. 10. Where do you think other Zekeriyas of tomorrow would flee? 

If we love our country, if we want democracy to prevail in this country, we should close this “Zekeriya period” in our justice system. 

Coalition chains  

I believe with all my heart that Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu genuinely wants a coalition government to be formed and he is doing his best. 

I also believe with all my heart that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu genuinely wants a coalition government to be formed and is doing his best. 

I am adding their votes and I reach 66 percent. Except for a coalition government of the CHP and the Justice Party (AP) that was formed after the 1961 elections, there was never such an overwhelming majority in the history of Turkish Parliament. 

I add their seats in the parliament, it makes 390. It is a majority that can change the constitution without a requirement to hold a referendum. 

And then I look around and see that we are at a time when our country is exposed to maybe the biggest domestic and external attack in its history. Why is the “patriotism, national solidarity and sacrifice” that is expected from us not demanded from the political parties under the roof of parliament? 

The answer is simple; it is because there are some things the latter is not able to do. In the future, when the history of this country is written, it will be seen who fettered the prime minister while the country was expecting sacrifice and engagement from politicians. And history will judge.