Ertugrul Ozkok: A sincere conversation with Turkey's ruling AKP members
Güncelleme Tarihi:
What I write today is a sincere conversation with the members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Hurriyet daily will announce the results of one of the most widely conducted public survey conducted in
The survey was carried out through face to face interviews with more than 20,000 people.
The aim of the research was to put forth what we, Turks, are.
While, also determining the profile of Hurriyet daily's readers.
I just want to mention one conclusion that has emerged from this research.
There are quite a few people among Hurriyet's readership that voted for the ruling AKP.
What is more, Hurriyet is also the top-selling Turkish-language newspaper in
In other words, it is likely that we have a lot of readers who donated to Deniz Feneri (the charity organization whose members are currently being tried for fraud in
So, as you see, Hurriyet is not a newspaper that simply follows this news from abroad.
We are related with the incident internally through our readers.
In other words, we are mediators in the incident.
* * *
Hakki Keskin, a German member of parliament of Turkish origin made the following comment regarding the Deniz Feneri scandal:
"The biggest aid organization scandal in
The case involves 20 billion euros of donated funds, which is unaccounted for.
The German government attempts to locate the money and pay it to those whose good-will and generous nature was exploited.
What should the Turkish government do at this point?
Shouldn’t it deal with the issue more comprehensively and decisively than the German police and German judiciary?
We would have been the prime minister’s greatest supporter if he had done this from the outset.
We don't have any hostility towards government.
We undertook the norms as dictated by the journalism profession and reported news about an ongoing case in
But we faced was an unimaginable attack from the prime minister.
We still at a loss to understand the reason behind this attack.
* * *
It was seven or eight years ago that I bought a copy of Le Nouvelle Observateur magazine at Charles de Gaulle Airport while transiting through Paris on my way back to Turkey.
The magazine’s cover story was about corruption and the headline read:
"
The incident related to the purchase of house in the south of The minister bought the house from a company, to which his ministry assigned a tender, for $200,000, if I am not wrong. And it was claimed that the sale price was $50,000 below the true market value. The magazine detailed this issue in a 17-page spread. * * * The magazine’s cover came to mind while I was following the Deniz Feneri case. A fifty-thousand-dollar "favor" cost the minister his seat and the magazine covered the case in 17 pages. Not on that day or on any another would the prime minister dare start a war against Le Nouvelle Observateur. I say "he did not dare" and choose this expression deliberately. I am not intending to mention a dare against the media power. A prime minister in a democratic country cannot dare start a war against a newspaper or a media group simply for reporting on a corruption case. I reiterate that this is daring. This is daring against democracy. Daring against a multi voiced society and the rule of law. This is why politicians that administer democracy would not dare so something like this. Sure, it can be done if the issue is considered just a show of strength. You can use all of the power the granted to you by the state and suppress some media groups. But you will not find a people, like Ceaser's wife, to believe in you a second time, when you do all this and then turn around and say, "I want full accession to the European Union." The Deniz Feneri case will likely conclude today. The onus will then turn to the connections in At least then, we want to see the honest members of the AKP beside us, rather than against us.