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Former Turkish PM Asks European Court To Rule On Party Ban
STRASBOURG (News Agencies) - Former Turkish prime minister Necmettin Erbakan asked the European Court of Human Rights Tuesday to rule on Ankara's 1998 decision to dissolve his pro-Islamic Refah party.
The court, which has already condemned Turkey for human rights abuses on three previous occasions, began hearing the case three years to the day after Refah (Prosperity) was banned.
The case was brought by the onetime leader of Refah, 74-year-old Erbakan, together with the party's former vice-chairmen Sevket Kazan and Ahmet Tekdal.
All three men challenged the legitimacy of the action by Turkey's constitutional court, which also saw them stripped of their parliamentary seats.
They argued that the court had not followed its own rules for the dissolution of political parties, but had acted under pressure from the country's military.
A lawyer for the Turkish government, however, stressed the importance of defending secular values in a Muslim country and accused Refah of having concealed its "anti-democratic and fundamentalist aims."
The state has a right to protect itself against Islam's tendency "to settle not only religious and moral questions, but legal questions and to a certain extent the political order of the state," he argued.
"In the Muslim context, we cannot separate the secular and the democratic," said the lawyer.
"It would have been tolerated if it had remained on the fringes."
Laurent Hincker, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, accused Turkey of running only a facade of democracy, accusing the country's constitutional court of having dug up old speeches by Erbakan in a bid to justify the ban.
Questioned by the judges on Refah's political aims, he said it had nothing in common with the Turkish Islamic movement Hezbollah.
Hincker attacked Turkish authorities for what he called bad faith. Although supposedly secular, Turkey's department of religious affairs dictated to imams the contents of their sermons, he alleged.
The plaintiffs accuse Turkey of having violated the right to freedom of religion, expression and association and the right to free elections - as well as property rights because of the assets seizure.
Each of the three plaintiffs is seeking damages and interest of $3,322 (3,532 euros) for their lost pay as deputies. They also want the return of $58,000, the value of the party's seized assets.
The decision of the court is expected in the coming months.
In 1998 and 1999, the court condemned Turkey over the banning of three political groups that were either Marxist or pro-Kurd.
Refah came to power in June 1996 at the head of a coalition formed after parliamentary elections the previous year.
Former prime minister Tansu Ciller's center-right True Path Party was a junior partner in the coalition.
The Constitutional Court dissolved the party on January 16, 1998, saying Refah had become a "center of activities against the principle of secularism" thereby undermining democracy.
The party's assets were transferred to the treasury.
Erbakan and two deputy leaders of the party were meanwhile stripped of their parliamentary seats and barred from founding, joining or leading any new political party for five years.
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