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Turkey To Try Islamic Party Leader For 1994 Critique
ANKARA, Aug 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the newly founded Islamic party, Justice and Development (AK), is being investigated on charges of insulting the state and its officials, Anatolia news agency reported Tuesday.
The investigation, ordered by a Turkish prosecutor, stems from a speech he made back in 1994, which was rebroadcast on a private television channel Monday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
In it, Erdogan reportedly said that Turkey's strictly secular order defies Islamic teachings, and has to change, as Islam and secularism could not co-exist.
Erdogan maintained that if Turkey had adopted an Islamic regime, under which all citizens would be acknowledged as Muslims, it would not have faced the long-running Kurdish question in the southeast region.
Erdogan, who now heads AK, also reportedly said that the country's constitution was written by "drunkards" - in a bold criticism of mainly Muslim Turkey's strictly anti-Islamic, secular elite.
The rebroadcast of the tape prompted prosecutor Turgay Evsen to order an inquiry to determine whether Erdogan, 47, had "insulted and scorned" the state and its officials, AFP reported.
If Evsen deems there is enough evidence, he will apply to the Justice Ministry for permission to prosecute Erdogan.
Charges of insulting the state carry up to a six-year prison sentence.
This is not the first time the Islamic leader faces a state prosecution.
Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, was subjected to a four-month imprisonment in 1999 for a political speech, which the court described as seditious.
The conviction further clamped a lifetime political ban on Erdogan, but he made a political comeback after the sentence fell under an amnesty law approved last December.
In mid-August, moderate Islamic political activists, led by Erdogan, set up the AK party, confirming the split with more conservative Islamic politicians who have formed their own party.
Erdogan has distanced himself from strictly conservative pro-Islamic rhetoric and taken a more liberal stand.
But, political Islam - conservative or liberal - is still regarded by the powerful military, which wants to bolster its Western-oriented path, as one of the primary threats facing the predominantly Muslim, but secular, country.
Moderate members of the outlawed pro-Islamic Virtue Party, led by Erdogan, announced in mid-August the formation of the Justice and Development Party.
Virtue's conservative faction in July had already founded its own party, called Saadet, or Happiness, after the Turkish constitutional court banned Virtue for anti-secular activities.
The new moderates, also known as the "modernists", have also attracted support from center-right politicians as well as political novices.
The cracks in Virtue's ranks emerged over the influence Necmettin Erbakan, the banned mentor of political Islam in Turkey, wielded over the party behind the scenes long before the party was banned in late June.
The "modernists" have stressed the need to address a broader electorate instead of appealing only to pious voters with Erbakan-style Islamic rhetoric that has often angered the strongly pro-secular elite, led by the powerful military.
The modernists, led by Erdogan, have criticized Virtue's failure as the main opposition party to put forward alternative solutions to Turkey's problems and have advocated an overhaul of the country's ailing political system, seen as at the core of widespread corruption, nepotism and recent economic woes.
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