27 Mayıs 2018 Pazar, 14:45

İKLİM ÖNGEL-SİNAN TARTANOĞLU-OZAN ÇEPNİ

Dean of Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty, Prof. Dr. Alaattin Duran, and his assistants, were dismissed following a visit by presidential candidate Muharrem İnce. Display flights by the Turkish Armed Forces Solo Turk aerobatics team were cancelled by the Chief of the General Staff after they shook hands with İnce, whom they encountered at the airport on 19 May.

MEDIA EMBARGO

Large sections of all Erdoğan’s speeches are broadcast live on the majority of TV stations. From time to time, certain TV stations briefly carry Muharrem İnce’s speeches. However, the Good Party, Felicity and the HDP are unable to find inclusion on either discussion programmes or news bulletins.

SINGLE-MAN RALLY

There is a persistent refusal to release Selahattin Demirtaş, against whom there is not a single conviction. With the candidates apart from Erdoğan finding ways of meeting voters, even under arduous conditions, Demirtaş is unable to directly address any voters apart from his cellmates and his wife and lawyers who come to visit him.

“This is what the fear of İnce comes down to”

CHP presidential candidate Muharrem İnce, who is continuing with his intense programme of rallies, in his calling points yesterday of Uşak and Afyon criticised President Tayyip Erdoğan, who had said he would recognise the status of cemevis, asking, “Where have you been for sixteen years?” İnce, who laid the emphasis on the economic situation at both rallies, made the following key points in his address:

-Give the supplementary scale before the election: My fellow townsman has governed Turkey for sixteen years. When Muharrem İnce became a presidential candidate on 4 May, he said, “I will give teachers, police officers, nurses and religious functionaries a 3600 supplementary scale.” I looked and my fellow townsman was going to give a 3600 supplementary scale. Now, the first question is “where has your mind been for sixteen years?” The second question is that CHP MPs submitted a motion to the Planning and Budget Commission calling for teachers, police officers, nurses and religious functionaries to be given a 3600 supplementary scale. In November 2017. AK Party MPs rejected this. You have not given 3600 for sixteen years and you rejected the motion in November. Now you come out and say you will give it. Mr Erdoğan, my dear fellow townsman, I call out to you from Uşak. I am brokering a solution. Since you are sincere and honest, since you will give them the supplementary scale, issue a decree with the force of law before the election.

-He has come to his senses after sixteen years: You wrote in your election announcement that you will recognise the status of cemevis. Where have you been for sixteen years.? We have submitted countless motions and bills on the legal status of cemevis. You rejected, or saw to the rejection of, the lot. The fear of İnce – this is what such fear comes down to. He has come to his senses after sixteen years. Youngsters do not know this but we do. First there was tuberculosis, also known colloquially as “ince sickness.” They will come down with İnce sickness.

-I’ll give you the economy!: They expound on the economy. I am a physics teacher. I am somebody who has studied higher mathematics, but I am somebody who has also worked as a shepherd. The economy cannot be explained with such gobbledygook; this is how the economy is explained. (Showing a can) You bought it for fifty lira. When the Ak Party came to power in 2002, you bought thirty litres of diesel. Now, sixteen years later, you fill this up (showing a smaller can). I’ll give you the economy, I’ll give you developed status. Oh, my noble people, my farmers, my villagers, my truck drivers, I am calling out to you, my small business people. Look, you used to fill this for fifty lira, now you fill this.

-It is my duty to reduce VAT on nappies/diapers: They appear in public and say, “Have three kids.” Then he said, “Have five kids.” When, with the permission of God and the wish of the people, I am elected president, I will not get involved with the number of kids, but I will get involved with kid’s nappies. My duty as president is not to get involved with the number of kids. I want my country’s population to be young but this is down to you. (Showing a nappy) This is a nappy. The VAT on nappies is 18%. Those who impose an 8% tax on kid’s knickers are beyond hope. My duty is not to set the number of kids. My duty is to lower the VAT on kid’s nappies. To lower the 8% VAT imposed on baby food and the 8% VAT imposed on milk. Instead, get involved with the colour of bread, get involved with the shape of seeds, get involved with the number of kids. Is this any of your business?

-Pensioners will make İnce the chief of the people: They are going to give the retired one thousand lira at religious holidays. We spoke of one wage each time. They stole it, but it is a bad copy. It is unfeasible like this. Inflation will reduce that thousand lira to nothing after a certain time. The solution to this is to give however much money the minimum wage is to pensioners on religious holidays. The lowest pension in Turkey is 840 lira and the highest is 6,500 lira. That is, there is a nine-fold difference. In Finland, by contrast, it is double. We must first solve this. If pensioners alone swing in one direction Muharrem İnce will be the chief of the people. Not long ago, a media organisation changed hands. Where was the money found? From Ziraat Bank. Is the Ziraat Bank’s business the media, or isn’t it farmers? Ziraat Bank loaned one billion dollars to the buyer of this media entity. Four and a half trillion. If it gave this billion dollars to small and medium sized enterprises instead of to one person, it would have given small and medium sized enterprises cash to the tune of 450 million each. If it gave it to farmers, it would have given money to 100,000 farmers amounting to 45,000 lira to each farmer. Oh merciless one, oh unconscionable one, are you not ashamed to have given one person one billion dollars instead of giving 100,000 farmers 45,000 lira each?

-Where is the marble for the palace from?: He is supposedly local and national. Everywhere he says, “I am local; I am national.” Is the marble for the palace Afyon marble or Indian marble? I want an answer. Is this what being local and being national comes to? The local is here and the national is here.

“Fakıbaba is lying”

After the Uşak rally, İnce drove a tractor in Dumlupınar and said to the attendant at the petrol station he himself drove to, “Fill it up, will you? Fill it up, will you, and let’s see how much a farmer pays to get his tractor filled?” Here, İnce recalled Minister of Agriculture and Husbandry Eşref Fakıbaba’s comment, “We are selling diesel to farmers at two and a half lira.” He said, “We will give farmers diesel at three lira. Either I am a liar, or Minister of Agriculture Fakıbaba is a liar. The liar will be exposed. We will see who the liar is now.” Having said this, he waited for the tank to be filled. When the amounts were revealed, İnce said, “We have bought 41.4 litres for 237 lira. Let us divide it and see how much it makes.” İnce, showing the result to emerge, said, “5.72 lira. He is supposedly giving it to farmers at two and a half lira. Look, we came on a farmer’s tractor and bought it. This means that Muharrem İnce is not telling lies. Fakıbaba is lying.” İnce paid the attendant letting him keep the change.

“The AKP’s conceit has united us”

In Konya, where it took one seat in the 1 November elections, the CHP is fielding former Deputy Prime Minister and AKP founder Abdüllatif Şener in first place and Felicity Party Youth Section Deputy Chair Abdülkadir Karaduman in second place. To criticism both about his standing as a CHP candidate and the CHP-SP alignment, Karaduman gave the response, “The AK Party’s conceit has brought all people together. They are trying to drag us apart from the CHP base.” Saying, “We will engage in politics with every party that gives supremacy to justice and recognises rights and the law,” Karaduman commented, “It is enough for the squandering of people’s labour and the sweat of their brows, it is enough for this order that makes people into the slaves and lackeys of people to change. This is the basic reason both why I am conducting politics in the Felicity Party and why I am being fielded as a candidate for the CHP. Building a hundred-square-metre mosque does not suffice to cover up the usurpation of justice in Turkey. Opening religious vocational high schools, opening Quran courses and increasing the number of theological schools and mosques does not cover up the injustice.” With Karaduman being put up as a candidate, his old social media posts have been dredged up and comments have been posted that the CHP has made a mistake with the list in view of his old Tweets. Indicating that the Nation Alliance is about how the fire in Turkey is to be put out, not by whom, Karaduman said, “The AKP’s attitudes and stances smelling of conceit have brought all the elements that oppose it together. It is a movement aimed at changing the broken order. The 24 June elections are an election that can transport Turkey to bright tomorrows.”

“You will be prosecuted”

Good Party leader and presidential candidate Meral Akşener addressed the people in Kayseri’s Cumhuriyet Square. Akşener, who is continuing her criticism over economic policies, had Erdoğan’s election announcement in her sights. Here are the key points that Akşener raised:

-Is anything stopping you?: I have spoken of a 3600 supplementary scale for police officers, health workers and teachers. Mr Erdoğan, who slunk away and has been sleeping for sixteen years, has remembered our police officers, health workers and teachers. You are governing this country through decrees with the force of law so is anything stopping you? Place your hand on your conscience. If I had not spoken of it and if there had been no Good Party, would 3600 be among the things you talk about? I also spoke about terrorism compensation and this was deposited in April and March.

-Everything got better with us: Political competition is above all good for the electorate and above all good for the people. If you set out on the road like the lone ranger with a single alternative, it is not long before conceit sets in and the electorate ceases to matter. They start to govern as if it were their own fiefdom with the mindset: “I’ll get elected anyway if I hang up my jacket.” We set out on the road and everything got better. 23 April, 19 May and 29 October were all falling sick. Thanks to God, they are all in fine fettle. It also came as a tonic to Mr Erdoğan and his friends and they are all in fine fettle.

-If his mind was in order: There is an engineer prime minister. He is speaking at a meeting on informatics and digital technology. He says, “The informatics business is all well and good but if you become obsessed with it you’ll go bonkers.” If his mind was in order he would not say this. The biggest billionaires in the world after 87 are young people. Open the way for Kayseri’s bright, hard-working, sharp-witted young people in software, in digital technology, in the furniture sector and in industry and let’s see what happens. Include women in employment and let’s see what happens. There are ten million unemployed. 26% of them are unemployed youth.

-Disgrace in paupers’ homes: The Minister of Finance shamelessly tweeted, “Our fast-breaking meal marathon in paupers’ homes begins.” Disgrace upon disgrace. You are responsible for those paupers’ homes and should be ashamed of the poverty of those homes. Like an egg, you do not like the shell you came out of. Has there ever been such impudence?

-Tired driver Erdoğan: They have become incapable of managing the economy. Mr Erdoğan is like the tired driver of those buses. Would you get on a bus driven by a sleepless driver with drooping head? We will get him off the vehicle, send him home and let him rest a bit.

-Way blocked for kids: Following the economy for sixteen years, you have now expectorated on education, too. Who is the one who has blocked the way for hard-working, ambitious kids in education? You are that one. Who was it who had a dream one night and changed his ideas about exams in the morning? You. The Minister of National Education learnt about it drinking tea at a taxi rank. So, who had the questions stolen? You. Who did not restore the rights of this nation’s cherished offspring who were robbed of their rights thanks to those questions? You.

-Look into the mirror for FETO: FETOists took over the army and judiciary and you looked on. Are you the garden scarecrow? All and sundry took you in. The rich have fled, the catering staff are in detention, the sons-in-law are on the run. We are FETOists and they are not FETOists. Look in the mirror, the mirror. You will see FETO’s inspiration in the mirror. Tackle the destitute and let those who robbed the country get away. But, if he annihilates this country he will annihilate the destitute, the destitute. The destitute will not be made to pay for a system FETOist groups usurped thanks to those destitute Anatolian children’s questions. This ruling body that caused these institutions to be usurped will be prosecuted for aiding and abetting.

Pre-election convictions

Gaziantep Regional Court of Justice (Appeal) has upheld sentences in the main KCK trial with one month to go until the 24 June elections. Included among those whose sentences were upheld are detained DTK Co-Chair Leyla Güven, Pero Dündar, Musa Farisoğulları and Tayyip Temel, whom the HDP is fielding as candidates in the 24 June elections. 99 people were sentenced to a total of 109 years 10 months and 22 days’ imprisonment on 28 March 2017 in the main KCK trial in which 154 people were prosecuted, among whose number are Kurdish politicians, co-mayors, assembly members, human rights advocates, journalists and intellectuals who were detained in the KCK operations following the 2009 local elections. Penal Chamber No 4 of Gaziantep Regional Court of Justice (Appeal), having examined the trial file consisting of 608 binders and 11,084 pages, has upheld the convictions of 89 defendants including HDP parliamentary candidates with one month to go until the 24 June elections.

Sentences of between 6-21 years

The court, which upheld the 21-year custodial sentence awarded to fifteen defendants including former DBP Co-Chair Kamuran Yüksek on the count of “organisation management” and also the 18-year custodial sentence handed down on the same count to thirteen people including journalist Tayyip Temel and former Sur Mayor Abdullah Demirbaş who have been put up as candidates on 24 June, quashed the sentence against defendant Ercan Akyol on the grounds that his trial was pending before Adana Serious Crime Court No 5 and ordered that his case be joined with the case in Adana. The court, which upheld the nine-year prison term on the count of “being organisation members” against twenty people including Pero Dündar, Musa Farisoğulları and former DTK Co-Chair Hatip Dicle, upheld the six year three month sentences also imposed for “organisation membership” on 32 people including detained DTK Co-Chair Leyla Güven, former Diyarbakır Mayor Fırat Anlı, former Siirt Mayor Selim Sadak and former Human Rights Association Deputy Chair and Diyarbakır Branch Chair Muharrem Erbey. The court, which also upheld the acquittal of 36 people including former Mardin Metropolitan Mayor Ahmet Türk, who was ousted, detained and some time later released on health grounds, quashed the sentence imposing a six year three month jail term on the count of “organisation membership” on former Kızıltepe Mayor Ferhan Türk on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence.

Important names from politics

The court, which upheld the prison sentence of five years handed down on the count of “committing crimes on behalf of the organisation” to former DBP Diyarbakır Provincial Co-Chair Zübeyde Zümrüt and of four years eight months and seven days on the same count to defendants Mehmet Güzel and Mehmet Aksünger, of six years and nine months on the count of “knowingly and willingly aiding the organisation” to Abdurrahim Tanrıverdi, Mustafa and Osman Ocaklık, Nazim Çağlak and Türki Gültekin, and of five years seven months and fifteen days on the same count to Murat Tuğrul, approved the decision to acquit the defendants Veysel Yıldırım and Adnan Bayram. It also quashed the prison sentence of six years and nine months awarded on the same count to Veysel Akar on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence, and ordered his acquittal. The court also ordered a re-examination of the decision imposing one year and two months’ imprisonment and a 600 lira fine on the count of “violation of the Firearms Law” on the defendants Ahmet Cengiz and Hatip Dicle.

Lawyer Reyhan Yalçındağ Baydemir: Not barred from standing

Lawyer Reyhan Yalçındağ Baydemir had the following to say in an assessment she made for our paper: “Of the corps that ordered technical surveillance, arrest and detention in the operation dubbed “KCK” directed against Kurdish politicians, human rights advocates and journalists in 2009 and that conducted the trial, 95% are in detention on FETO charges. There is a section in the main FETO indictment referring to judges and prosecutors saying, “They set up a conspiracy in the judiciary.” The Ergenekon and Sledgehammer trials were re-examined, those sentenced were acquitted and astronomical compensation was paid, but, when Kurds’ turn came, these circumstances were disregarded. The judges and prosecutors newly appointed to the cases taken from judges and prosecutors who had been dismissed on FETO charges continued this lawlessness. Now, the appeal court has upheld this lawlessness, too. As the sentences imposed today were of five years and above, there is no situation of these people being unable to stand as candidates. Because recourse to the Court of Cassation is available. No ban on politics applies to my clients over the process. So, their names will be included on lists of parliamentary candidates. But, Court of Cassation proceedings beckon.”

“Well, what about your most loved rival’s circumstances?”

HDP presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş, who is detained in Edirne Prison, called out on his Twitter account to the media that is ignoring his rivals and himself. Demirtaş, responding to messages that he should be released from other presidential candidates Muharrem İnce, Meral Akşener and Temel Karamollaoğlu, sent the message to these candidates, “Your calls relating to me are important and I deem them to be valuable. If election campaigning is not fair and equal, the legitimacy of the result will be called into dispute. You, too, are unable to operate in a fair environment. Our country’s need for justice becomes apparent above all in this way.” Demirtaş called out in turn to President Tayyip Erdoğan with the comments, “As president, you promise justice after sixteen years in power. I would like to hear your views on your most loved rival being forced to campaign for the election from jail. I would be delighted if you commented without forgetting the presumption of innocence in the Constitution.”

To the Radio and Television Corporation: Sin and Crime

Conversely, with Demirtaş telling the Radio and Television Corporation on his social media account, “It is both a sin and a crime for voters’ taxes to be used for a single party’s propaganda,” he had the following to say to private stations, “The HDP and Demirtaş are also contesting the 24 June elections but I think you are unaware of this. Otherwise, why shouldn’t there be news about us in your bulletins and someone from the HDP on your discussion programmes, isn’t that so (!). You are surely unaware, but now I have told you.”