POST-MODERN COUP PUNISHED
Former military brass, including former Chief of General Staff İsmail Hakkı Karadayı was sentenced to life on Friday in a landmark trial on the 1997 coup that toppled the government and disrupted the lives of millions whose freedoms were curbed
A COURT in Ankara on Friday sentenced 21 people to life in prison for their complicity in the so-called post-modern coup of Feb. 28, 1997, which resulted in the toppling of the democratically elected government and imposition of various restrictive measures against conservatives. Former Chief of General Staff Rtd. Gen. Ismail Hakkı Karadayı and his deputy Rtd. General Çevik Bir were among the sentenced. 68 of the 103 were acquitted while the rest received various sentences for culpability. All were released due to their age and health pending their appeals.
AN ANKARA court on Friday concluded the case of 103 people accused of running the Feb. 28, 1997 coup in a landmark verdict that saw former generals sentenced to life.
Former Chief of General Staff İsmail Hakkı Karadayı and 20 others, mostly his deputies in the military, were sentenced to life in prison in the last hearing watched by a large crowd of coup victims, lawmakers and media. Sixty-eight others were released in the trial, which started some five years ago after police rounded up former military officers in an unprecedented operation.
Karadayı, his then deputy Gen. Çevik Bir and others sentenced to life will not be sent to prison due to their old age under Turkish law, but the court ordered them to be under judicial control and a banned them from traveling before the Supreme Court of Appeals issues a final verdict on the case. Kemal Gürüz, former head of Council of Higher Education (YÖK), which oversees universities, is the only non-military defendant sentenced to life in the trial.
The verdict, awaited by millions whose lives were derailed by those behind the coup, marks the latest chapter in Turkey’s confrontation with its past stained by a string of coups.
The coup is distinguished among others in the Republic’s history for its nature and called the post-modern coup by many, as it did not involve any outright physical action. Instead, the secular elite, led by the all-too-powerful military, used psychological warfare in its campaign against the government and anybody deemed reactionary. An ultimatum to the government on Feb. 28, 1997 led to its subsequent resignation and further boosted a crackdown that disrupted the lives of people forced to drop out of school, dismissed from their jobs or jailed on trumped-up charges.
Prosecutor Mehmet Hanifi Yıldırım has accused 85-year-old retired Gen. Karadayı, who was the chief of general staff during the coup, and his deputy at the time, and retired Gen. Bir, 78, for plotting to topple the government. The prosecutor asked for aggravated life sentences for the two former generals and 60 other military officials within Bir's command echelon. He also asked for the release of the remaining 41 suspects.
Karadayı served as chief of general staff from 1994 to 1998, at a time when the military put pressure on then Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and his conservative Welfare Party over secular concerns. On Feb. 28, 1997, the militarydominated National Security Council threatened action if Erbakan did not back down. He resigned four months later. The Welfare Party and its successor, the Virtue Party, were banned by the Constitutional Court in January 1998 and June 2001, respectively.
Within the scope of the Feb. 28 decisions, the "Batı Çalışma Grubu" (West Study Group) was founded and chaired by Bir, who was considered the mastermind of the coup, to control the proceeding of the decrees under the name of the Action Plan against Reactionary Forces.
Members of the military gave briefings on secularism particularly to judges, civil servants and media executives. Repression of religious segments of society was hardened, including a ban on headscarves at universities. Many civil servants were also fired. Heavy censorship was imposed on the media, and opposition journalists were fired. Some companies saw embargoes imposed, on the pretext that they support reactionary politics. Reactionary in Turkish refers to a broad derogatory term (irticacı) used by hardline secular groups for people with a religious affiliation.
Ravza Kavakçı Kan, deputy chair of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, hailed the verdict as an important turning point. “Putschists accounted for their crimes for the first time,” Kan told Daily Sabah. The lawmaker herself was forced to study abroad due to the headscarf ban. Her sister, Merve Kavakçı, was a symbol of how the oppression of putschists prevailed, as she was prevented from swearing in as a lawmaker in 1999 while wearing headscarf. “It was a dark era for everyone. People’s lives were turned into a nightmare,” Kan said. She added that they hope the verdict and trial would set in motion more investigations and trials for non-military actors who helped the coup.
Reşat Petek, a lawmaker who serves on Parliament’s Human Rights Committee and was head of an inquiry committee into the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, told reporters outside the courthouse that Turkey is no longer a country “that allows coups.” “I hope every victim of the coup, from young girls forced to take off their headscarves before entering their school and mothers not allowed to visit their sons serving in the military took a breath of relief when they heard the verdict,” he said.
Despite the leaders of the so-called post-modern coup believing the system they imposed would last 1,000 years, it collapsed in five due to heavy-handed politics of the time and an economic crisis in 1999. Erbakan’s government was followed by a string of coalition governments whose unsuccessful administrations paved the way for economic catastrophe. After turbulent years, Erbakan's protege, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) gained an overwhelming majority in the 2002 general elections. The party, in power since then, pledged to reverse the damage done by coups, starting with lifting the headscarf ban for public sector employees.
MEDIA, CIVILIAN HELPER OF THE COUP
One common request from victims of the 1997 coup is bringing civilians involved in it to justice, as well. There is not any ongoing investigation yet into alleged media involvement in the coup. Media played a prominent role in pav- ing the way for the coup with incessant propaganda serving the interests of the secular elite against Islamists. Playing on fears of secularists that Turkey would be a new Iran with a shariah regime under Erbakan, newspapers and TVs churned out reports either ridiculing Muslims or portraying any act of praying or remark as a sign of creeping Islamization. For them, Muslims or anyone with a pinch of piety were malicious if not outright antiregime, as a quick check of prominent newspapers from that period, shows. Eerily reminiscent of today’s far-right mindset that ties anything concerning Daesh or other terrorist groups to Muslims, media run stories discriminating against anyone viewed as religious.
Hürriyet, formerly the flagship newspaper of Doğan media conglomerate, led the campaign with attention-grabbing headlines decrying actions tarnishing Turkey’s secular image. Veiled warnings toward the government from the military also splashed across the front pages of newspapers at the time. Erbakan’s hosting of spiritual leaders at the Prime Ministry and a play with religious undertones sponsored by a municipality were targets of the media’s defamation. On TVs, students praying or scandals at Quran courses were main items on the news with coverage amounting to Islamophobia.