The issue is not complicated.

During 2007 and 2008 when the AK Parti (Justice and Development Party) was faced with a noose prepared by the laicists and nationalists and was left exposed amid the mechanisms of the state due to the party closure case hanging over its head, it could only find one force it headed, and that was the police and judges affiliated to the community (the Fethullah Gülen-led movement).

Partially spurred on by its will to conduct a struggle, and partially pressured by democratic principles, the political leadership began to take counter measures against groups showing resistance, even against the pressure being applied by gangs of resistance and military tutelage, just as was the case regarding the issue of Article 367 of the constitution.

Making use of regulations concerning prosecutors and courts with special powers, gains were being made by availing of the opportunity created to delve into and enter protected areas. The community, with its extensive structure and many members, represented the new judicial reflex and made forward strides.

These two, until 2010, placed a role in Turkey’s demilitarization process that cannot be taken lightly. It was during a period when the law had not yet been fully instrumentalized, with the exception of some witness rights violations, waves of mass detentions and abuse of confidentiality during investigations. It was only later that it started becoming clear, however, that the intentions and struggle, as far as the community was concerned, were not the same…

At a certain point the Gülen group members shoved legal principles to one side and used the state power they controlled to their own ends, as seen in the Hanefi Avcı investigation, and the KCK (Kurdish Communities Union), Balyoz and ODA TV cases.

The community’s strategy began taking shape. This strategy had three aspects.

            1.Policies to purge and expand: The attempts to spread in all areas, ranging from universities, to the judiciary, to the courts, to revenue offices and to the army were always accompanied by policies of purging. For instance, cases like the Balyoz espionage case were for conducting a purge in the army, and probably the start of a process to install their own cadres.

           2. Policies of hegemony: The community started adopting the path of punishing and striking out at those who developed an awareness of its actions. A mechanism was created in this regard to apply pressure in the form of “political truth” and failing that, to keep tabs on, place wire taps, and accuse people of belonging to Ergenekon and other similar measures. Hanefi Avcı, Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener became the symbols representing victims of these attempts at depriving people of their legal and other rights.

This quest to impose hegemony was also directed toward legal and security-related units and security policies. The interior minister of the time, Beşir Atalay, and MİT (National Intelligence Organization) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan became targets because they became aware of the community’s moves to embed its cadres, and due to their opposition to hawkish policies that brought security-related units to the fore.

In this context, security policies, the security forces and the language promoting it, started to become the existential tool of the community’s struggle. The MİT crisis, the arrests of Büşra Ersanlı and Ragıp Zarakol, and the KCK operations all came to symbolize this.

      3. Policies of substitution: We could also define this as a sort of a process of becoming a state. As the community gained in strength, and probably on the basis of the interests of its partners, it started developing various alternative political policies primarily in regard to foreign policy and the Kurdish policy but also in other areas such as drugs and the war against the mafia.

It implemented these policies by deploying its own cadres, and even used the same cadres to try to influence government policies, and if required to undermine those policies. The Feb. 7, 2012 MİT crisis was one consequence of the community’s policies of hegemony and substitution.

Is it possible to ignore this picture?

Why should acknowledging this picture have to equate with brushing aside authoritarianism, the debate on corruption and other issues?

And the fundamental question: To what extent do you think the investigation of Dec. 14 is independent of all this, despite its distorting the image of democracy and despite the procedural errors?

Yesterday I read a communiqué by intellectuals, which included the expression “the latest attack targeting rights and freedoms, and aimed at eradicating press freedom…,” with regard to the operation on Dec. 14…

Someone is very mistaken, but who is it?