Parliament speaker proposes law to neglect 1960 military coup rulings

ANKARA

Turkish Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop has submitted a law proposal to the parliament assembly that envisages neglecting Yassıada rulings that saw the execution of senior politicians in 1960.

The law proposal asks to ignore decisions made by the Supreme Court of Justice established after the coup d’etat on May 27, 1960 “Yassıada trials.”

It said that “eliminating the grievances caused by the proceedings and to the social wounds caused as far as possible must be considered as one of the main duties falling to the legislature of the Republic of Turkey which is a democratic state of law.”

Yassıada, one of the Princes’ Islands located in the Sea of Marmara southeast of Istanbul, has been named Democracy and Freedoms Island.

It is notorious for jails and trials from the 1960 military coup. The island was renamed “Democracy and Freedoms Island” in 2013 as part of a rebranding effort to attract more cultural and historical tourism.

The trials of Turkey’s first democratically elected prime minister, Adnan Menderes, then Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and then Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan before a military junta took power were held on the island. They were later executed by the military junta on İmralı Island in 1961.