Erdogan's police purge claims former allies
The government hunt for police chiefs accused of affiliation with the Gulen Movement's "parallel state" has widened and may turn into a nationwide witch hunt.
On the morning of July 22, at 3 a.m., 14 prominent Turkish police officers were rounded up from their residences by other police officers. They were accused of illegal wiretapping of politicians and bureaucrats, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the National Intelligence Agency (MIT), Hakan Fidan. Erdogan, who openly supported the purge, said that this was “only a beginning.” Three days later, six of the detained were released, the other eight were put into jail for investigations while detained.
This is the latest round, so far, in the passionate political battle that has haunted Turkey since December, when a “corruption investigation” led four ministers to resign and shook the image of the government. Erdogan argued that the whole investigation was a sham and a conspiracy cooked up by the “parallel state” formed by his former allies, the Islamic community led by Fethullah Gulen. This “parallel state” allegedly was a network of police and prosecutors who were acting on behalf of the ideology and purposes of the Gulen community, rather than the legal hierarchy of the state. The detained policemen are accused by Erdogan’s supporters of being a part of this covert network.
Debate in Turkey about “the parallel state,” albeit under different labels, existed long before Erdogan declared it public enemy No. 1. Various journalists had brought similar accusations about the Gulen Movement network in the judiciary and the police, especially during the controversial “coup cases” that began in 2008 with the probe of “Ergenekon” — an alleged network of officers and civilians who were blamed for a military coup scheme. Another case known as “Sledgehammer” soon followed in 2010, which put nearly 300 military officers in jail for another alleged coup plan. In the same era, 2008-2012, dozens of journalists were also jailed — one of them, Ahmet Sik, right after writing a book on the very topic of Gulen Movement within the police.
The big difference in that, in the 2008-2012 era, Erdogan saw this so-called “parallel state” not as a threat, but as an ally. Then the military and its secularist allies were seen as the common enemy of all religious conservatives, whether they were pro-Erdogan or pro-Gulen. Once this common enemy was defeated, though, the partnership between old allies collapsed and gradually turned into a bitter dispute.
