Husband-wife
team probed for book
By Metin
Demirsar Istanbul (Dunya) –
An Istanbul public prosecutor has launched an investigation
into a husband-wife team for having written and published a critical study on
the anti-government protests that rocked Turkey this summer, the authors said on
Wednesday. The prosecutor summoned Nurten Ozkoray and her husband Erol Ozkoray
to the main court in Istanbul on Friday to give testimony on why
their Idea Politika Publishing house printed ‘Gezi Fenomeni’ (The Gezi
Phenomenon), a 280-page study on the Gezi Park protests. The book came out on
August 1.
The Gezi
disturbances started at the end of May as an innocuous environmentalist
movement protesting municipal plans to build an Ottoman-era army barracks and
shopping mall in a park in central Istanbul. But the protests burst into
nation-wide anti-government clashes. Some six people were killed and more than
8,500persons were injured in a violent police crackdown against the
demonstrators. The Ozkorays, who are leading intellectuals, said the
investigation had begun on claims that the book had “insulted public
officials,” notably Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Ozkorays are
former journalists and public relations executives who have advised
governments, political par-ties, and political figures, as well as private
companies on corporate strategy. Mrs. Ozkoray is a sociologist and communications
consultant, while Mr. Ozkoray, 60, is a political scientist and former reporter
with Agence France Presse and Spain’s El Pais daily newspaper. Mr.
Özkoray, a well-known advocate of democracy in Turkey, said he and his wife weren’t
surprised by the attack on them by the Islamist-rooted government. Green
Fascism “I was waiting for this assault on the Gezi revolution by the Islamic
Government. As you can see, Green (Islamic) Fascism has no boundaries to attack
free expression of opinion in the 21st century,” he said in a written
statement. “As an intellectual, writer and publisher, I don’t accept any limits
on the freedom of expression. My writings take articles in the constitution
that guarantees freedom of expression and accept the supremacy of international
laws over restrictive laws ... as the basis in expressing my opinion,” Mr. Ozkoray
said. He warned that the investigation is against democracy and showed the dangerous
side of the pro-Islamist government. “If we don’t stand against this with Gezi
spirit, the country will yield to Islamic totalitarianism.” Mr. Ozkoray said.
The
backbone of the book is a summary of Mrs. Ozkoray’s dissertation for a MA from
the Bosphorus University in sociology, which Idea published
this spring. The thesis written by Mrs. Ozkoray on ‘The Individualism and
Democracy in Turkey’ sheds light on the Gezi movement
by explaining the parameters of individualism of the ‘90s generation. The
hypothesis here is that the lack of democracy and its institutions to ensure
freedom and rights hinder individual development. In his part of the book, Mr.
Ozkoray tells how Islamic authoritarianism developed in Turkey and why it stands against the
movement of the youth and the people. He analyses the phases of power between
Turkish military and the AKP government during the last 11 years; how they
destroyed the EU project together, and how the media was tamed.
source : International Herald Tribune, Dünya, 27 sep 2013
www.dunya.com
