American Public Broadcasting Radio – 301. Madde Hakkında (İng.)

CHP Genel Başkan Yardımcısı Onur Öymen’in Amerikan Public Brodcasting Radyosuna verdiği mülakat
14 Şubat 2007
Öymen: I think so because the majority of the people are looking for reconciliation for better understanding for the election of the president. Whereas the government has the inclination to elect their own people in the parliament, they are not apparently ready for reconciliation with the opposition parties and with the majority of the people. This creates a political tension. I believe that if they insisted to elect the prime minister as the president, afterwards I’m afraid that these tensions will further grow. Because this party in power today, they had only 34 percent of votes five years ago. Apparently today they have much less support in the public. So if they insisted to elect their own leader using their majority in the parliament, this new president will not represent the feelings and the expectations of at least more than half of the people. President supported by relative minority of the people, there will be some reactions to that. We are afraid that it may lead us to an instable situation. The religious element plays a role because the prime minister profiles as a political leader with excessive religious tendencies with the intention to change the basic structures, the tissue of our society and to make a secular republic created by Atatürk a religious country, a state of religion like some Middle-Eastern countries. This is the fear. He is on record in the past and several occasions he expressed his disbelief to western style democracy to secularism, to our constitutional system. Therefore everybody’s afraid that he will try to use or to abuse the presidential prerogatives to change the basic tissue, the backbone of our society. The headscarf of his wife is not the most important issue. If he were a bachelor, the feelings would not be different. Or his wife did not have a headscarf as long as he himself continues support this excessive religious tendencies the fear would be the same. Therefore the main problem is not his wife but himself.

We all criticize and condemn this assassination. The positive thing is that there was a large mass of different opinion, tendencies or ethnic background. They joined forces to protest this assassination; they took a very firm stand against political killings. This was the positive thing. The negative aspect was that some elements in the society, some groups in Istanbul, they wanted to profit this reaction of the mass to impose their own views to the society by giving the impression that those who were not sharing Hrant Dink’s opinions, were somehow indirectly guilty of this assassination. This was too much and this created an excessive nationalist reaction in Turkey. To condemn the assassination is one thing, to cherish the views, all the views expressed by Hrant Dink is another thing. In a democratic society, everybody should be free to defend whatever idea they want to support. So if you use such public emotions to impose certain ideas and opinions then it would necessarily create excessive reactions. Some of the reactions went a little too far too much. We also condemn excessive reactions in the stadiums for instance. But the positive aspect should be underlined. The positive aspect is that the overwhelming majorities of our population strongly condemns the assassination and express their solidarity with the family of Hrant Dink and the Armenian community of Istanbul.

For instance some of the editors and journalists said that those who were supporting to maintain the article 301 of the penal code are indirectly responsible of the assassination. So they expose some influence saying that article 301 is the killer of Hrant Dink. Those were excessive reactions. Of course one can always argue about article 301 those who are in favor and those who are against should have the opportunity to speak freely. But to impose a view on the society using or abusing this assassination would be very unfortunate. For instance they say that those who were supporting different views than Hrant Dink, have psychological family ties with the killers of Hrant Dink. So these are excessive remarks and they created uproar among some nationalist circles in Turkey. I believe that at this moment we don’t need more tensions in Turkey. We need reconciliation, we need to understand each other, and we need to join forces around further reforms, democratization of the society keeping our basic secular democratic values. So this is not the time to feel additional tensions in Turkey and the attempts to impose Mr. Erdoğan as the president of the republic, or the attempts to excessively accuse each other on such political and legal matters are not helpful.

There are different reasons but one of the reasons is that unfortunately, in the last couple of years, Turkey was under excessive attacks and accusations from some European countries and circles. Those who are against to Turkish membership to EU are batching Turkey practically every day. On every occasion they blame Turkey in a most excessive and unacceptable terms. So this has already created a reaction in the public. On several occasions, all over Turkey they hang Turkish flags at their balconies. Hundred and thousands of flags were displayed reacting to such excessive and unacceptable accusations batching of Turkey. This is one reason. Another reason is that in Turkey, some journalists, some businessman and some pro-governmental circles are excessively undermined the national interests of Turkey. In foreign policy, in economy and other matters, they openly blame those who defend the interests of Turkish society of Turkish business community. I mean the Turkish interests in general. So for them, to defend Turkish interests would be against the globalization and contemporary values so we should forget about the national interest and accept all demands of foreign organizations and countries. So it would be a sort of excessive and unhealthy obedience to the critics of Turkey from outside. So those things created very strong reactions in the Turkish public because the general public, the overwhelming majority of Turks are strongly attached to the values of Atatürk and to the values of our national interest and the values of our national identity. They are ready to cooperate with the west and ready to join EU, but they are not ready to sacrifice our national dignity. So these columnists and a few academicians, for instance on Armenian issue and other issues, they took such a stand that whoever defends the basic values and dignity of our society are out of this world. They don’t have a place in this actual world. Those who are in excessive positions created similarly excessive reaction. So we need to learn to negotiate and to discuss with a constructive spirit and we should be allowed to defend our views.

For example, some businessmen that are under the strong pressure of the government owns majority of the newspapers in Turkey. So very often they practically censor the opinions of the opposition. So this creates reactions in the public too.

They should continue to defend their views and it is the duty of the states to protect all citizens under threat. We are criticizing the government for not having protected Hrant Dink, despite some information that he might be attacked. There were such information coming months ago and the government failed to protect Hrant Dink. After the assassination, they accused some politicians and some intellectuals that think differently as being psychological relatives of the killers. Could you imagine that? This is not an expression of an opinion on any issue but they literally accuse their opponents as being moral associates of the killer. This is not a freedom of expression; it goes beyond that.