Paranoia
and Polarization in Turkey/Mustafa Akyol is a columnist and the author of Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty.
The
New York Times | 17/04/ 2015
On
March 31, two men disguised as lawyers entered a downtown Istanbul courthouse.
They headed to the office of Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, locked the door,
drew their guns and held him hostage. Soon they revealed that they were members
of the DHKP-C, or the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, an illegal
Marxist-Leninist party. Their aim was to avenge the “murder” of Berkin Elvan, a
victim of the massive antigovernment protests of June 2013, who died at 15
after being hit in the head by a police tear-gas canister.
Mr.
Kiraz was the prosecutor in charge of investigating the death of Mr. Elvan, who
has become an icon in Turkey, especially among opposition groups. Mr. Kiraz was
the fourth prosecutor to work on the controversial case and the only one who
had made some real progress in identifying the police officers who were
responsible for Mr. Elvan’s death. Yet the militants were not interested in
such facts, and targeted the whole state as the “murderer.”
After
six hours of negotiation with the hostage-takers, the police launched an
operation that ended with the deaths of both attackers and the prosecutor. The
incident shook the nation. Mr. Kiraz was declared a martyr and given an
official state funeral. But his killing furthered poisoned the bitter politics
of a nation hatefully divided between supporters and opponents of President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
