We need to find who killed 34 people

Thirty-four people were bombed to death in the southeastern town of Şırnak’s Uludere district. These people had no connection with the terror organization.

They were villagers who had been trying to earn a living through border smuggling for years. After the Parliamentary Human Rights Research Sub-Committee watched the footage of the bombing, the bitter truth came to the surface once again.

Did the commanding officers in charge that night, who monitored the first images and were not able to reach a clear idea about this group, say: “Let’s not take a risk. Maybe they are from the PKK (the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party). They might give us trouble. Let’s hit them?”

This logic is perfectly suitable in our world. Nobody is made accountable for shootings along the border. But this time the situation is different. Now, everybody is looking for an answer to this question: 
Who gave the order to kill these people? 

We know that the General Staff has been conducting an investigation on this matter for a long time. The public has already reached its verdict: These 34 people in Uludere were killed for nothing. 

Now, are we going to say: “Well, they were smugglers anyway,” and close the file? No, we are waiting for the investigation to finalize as soon as possible and for those responsible to be punished. 

Prosecutors did not invite me 

I have to correct a mistake. 

On Wednesday, in this column, I wrote about my interview with the prosecutors who were closely monitoring the developments on the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) case. 

Oh my God! I wish I hadn’t talked to them. I wish I hadn’t written this. I have caused unnecessary trouble for these people. The media has put them in the firing line.

Excerpts were taken from my piece and it was said: “The prosecutors invited Birand. They put a file in front of him and started their public relations campaign.” 

Actually, nobody invited me. I went there for a totally different reason, and afterwards I was chatting about day-to-day matters with the prosecutors I had met. Unavoidably, the MİT case became a talking point. I started the conversation. They were kind enough to answer me – not like they were issuing a statement - but in a conversational manner. They shared their views with me. 

What they said offered a completely different angle that I had not heard until that moment. Everybody, including me, had only heard the MİT viewpoint. Nobody had heard the views of the prosecutors. I thought it was important that this side of the case should be made known to the public, and so I wrote about it without giving names.

You may say that I abused the trust in me. I broke the rules and put the prosecutors in trouble. 
I would like to correct what has been written and said about them and I apologize. 

Special powers should be restricted 

The former President of the High Court of Appeals Sami Selçuk said very precise and correct points on Cüneyt Özdemir’s TV show on CNN TÜRK. 

Selçuk drew attention to the fact that the State Security Courts, the ones that we have been complaining for years, have been renamed and transformed into Specially Authorized Courts. He said that actually there had been no real change and that we were fooling ourselves. 

There is no difference between the old “State Security Courts” and the “Specially Authorized Courts.” 
It is the same old story.

We have to reach a consensus that we cannot go anywhere with specially authorized courts and prosecutors. If we want real democracy, we need to end this distortion.

Courts with special powers also exist in other countries, but our practice is unique to us. Nowhere are powers used as vulgarly as they are used here. We need to abolish this anomaly.