A few days ago, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey would request the extradition of U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen. Thereupon, editorialists of American news outlet The New York Times published an article titled "Let Mr. Erdoğan fight his own battles."
The editorialists may not comprehensively know what is going on in Turkey, so we can tolerate their fallacious interpretations due to this imperfect information. Yet, the extremely self-reliant tone of the article divulges that what is wrong with the editorial line is far beyond journalistic negligence, because they used some assertive statements and said Turkey's demand for Gülen's extradition is "nothing more than a crass and cynical attempt." Apparently, they did not have enough time to perform research for their own article.
Therefore, they confined themselves to onesided information given by the Gülen Movement, which has a strong lobby in the U.S.
As one of their Turkish colleagues, I would like to lend some assistance. They wrote: "For the United States to approve an extradition request, the person must be accused of a crime recognized in both jurisdictions, and there must be a reasonable belief that the person
committed the crime." And they are totally correct in this statement.
However, it is impossible to understand how they came to this conclusion: "It seems unlikely those conditions exist [in the case of Fethullah Gülen]" (May 2, 2014, The New York Times). Legal probes and proceedings have already been launched into Gülen and his movement. The latest one was initiated by the Ankara Attorney General's Office after it suspected them of "attempting to subvert the government of the Republic of Turkey; or attempting to partially or entirely block the government from performing its duties; founding and directing an organization" (April 30, 2014, Vatan).
The offense identified within the investigation is based on the treaty of "mutual legal assistance in extradition and criminal matters between Turkey and the U.S." Article 2 of the treaty stipulates that the punishment to be inflicted on a person whose extradition is demanded shall exceed one year. But, legal sanctions to be placed on Gülen and his disciples extend to tens of years.
Another baseless argument in the article is that, "It would be an abuse of extradition law to use it for political reasons." But they do not explain why organized crime in Turkey is considered "political reasons" when the same crime receives a penalty in the U.S.
Moreover, with its autonomous structure in the bureaucracy of the judiciary and security, the Gülen Movement directly targeted Erdoğan in the Dec. 17 and 25 operations. With these operations that are totally in contrast to universal legal norms, they tried to overthrow Erdoğan and his cronies as well as the AK Party's government.
Article 3 of the treaty openly lays down "any offense committed or attempted against a head of state or a head of government or against a member of their families shall not be deemed an offense of a political nature."
There are a number of accusations about Gülen and his followers in Turkey. As mentioned, an independent Turkish judiciary has launched probes into the movement's illegal structure. In the coming days it is expected that further investigations will be initiated into the Gülen Movement for illegal wiretapping of the prime minister and leaking of high-level government secret security meetings. As two strong allies, the U.S. and Turkey's legal struggle against domestic antidemocratic structures requires global support.
By saying "Let Mr. Erdoğan fight his own battles," The New York Times is calling on Obama to reject Turkey's request for Gülen's extradition, and should therefore do some broad research to understand the true face of their companions. I am certain that as reputable journalists who care about democracy they do not want to consciously be an instrument for lobbyists.
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