The White, Black and Gray Of the Ergenekon Trial
That fervent belief in secrecy is behind the excesses of the Ergenekon case in Turkey.
Since its genesis in 2007, the Ergenekon trial has been quite hard to grasp by Turks themselves, let alone foreigners — for the case, which ended last Monday with heavy prison sentences for 254 suspects, is probably the most complicated in Turkish legal history. The indictment is longer than 5,000 pages, whereas the attached documents of evidence number more than a million. And the suspects — most of them now convicts — include a staggering scope of people ranging from retired generals to journalists, from university professors to mafia celebrities.
In Turkey, there are broadly three different views about this case:
The white view: Held by most religious conservatives, most of whom support the incumbent AKP (Justice and Development Party) and a few secular liberals. Accordingly, the Ergenekon case is a great leap forward for Turkish democracy. The suspects were members of a conspiratorial network, which would have launched a military coup against the AKP government had they not been brought to justice. They are also the members of the Turkish “deep state,” which has committed many crimes against leftists, Kurdish activists, liberals and non-Muslim minorities.
The black view: Held by most secularists and ultra-nationalists, most of whom are the sworn enemies of the AKP government. They believe that all Ergenekon suspects are in fact patriots whose only crime was to walk “on the path of Atatürk” and defend the republic against its “enemies within,” such as the AKP. They do not accept that there was a coup plot, but also believe that even if there were one, it would be only justified.
