More than a million attend Turkey rally: police

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

ISTANBUL (AFP) - More than one million people are rallying in support of Turkish secularism and democracy amid a political crisis over presidential elections, police sources said Sunday.

Police officers at the scene of the mass demonstration in the European side of Istanbul told AFP that the crowd had swelled beyond a million people.

The rally at the city's sprawling Caglayan square was supported by some 600 non-governmental organizations and follows a similar demonstration in Ankara on April 14 which drew up to 1.5 million people, according to some estimates.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070429/ts_afp/turkeypoliticsvote_070429125242

[cliss]

1. Turkey's worst nightmare.

Turkey is one of the few islamic countries which is more or less 'democratic'. It's been fairly stable the last few years.

[still_one]

2. One million Turks rally against government

Source: Reuters

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - As many as one million people rallied in a sea of red Turkish flags in Istanbul on Sunday, accusing the government of planning an Islamist state and demanding it withdraw its presidential candidate

Despite the protests and a threat from the powerful army to intervene in the election, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, architect of Turkey's EU membership drive, said he would remain the ruling AK Party's candidate for head of state.

The protesters flooded the streets of Turkey's largest city, praising the army and denouncing Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party enjoys a huge parliamentary majority, as a threat to a secular order separating state and religion.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070429/wl_nm/turkey_president_dc

---

Hopefully they will call for early elections. From everything I know the majority in Turkey want a secular government

[acmavm]

3. I think the majority of people in all the Middle Eastern countries want

secular governments. It's the nutballs and fanatics who want religious theocracies.

The big problem is the religious nuts aren't afraid to strap bombs around their bodies and blow everyone to hell if they don't get their way. All in the name of God.

[still_one]

4. I think you are right /nt

[fshrink]

7. Explicit separation between Church and State!

Unlike here. Imagine the reaction of our many ayatollahs if references to religion, god and the like, were removed from public life...

[cliss]

5. A photo

from the Swedish online newspaper, www.aftonbladet.se/

[ohio2007]

6. Some news sites down play the #'s

SOme reported "tens of thousands", others hundreds of thousands and yet others hint at one million.
Isn't the guy running Turkey the same guy that was president when the US was looking at the Turkish border as the ideal ground invasion route of iraq ?

[cliss]

9. Do you mean Tayyip Erdogan?

He was the president when they decided to deny the U.S. as a staging ground for invading Iraq. Actually, it really wasn't his decision since the Parliament (?) decided NO. It was incredibly interesting, because the U.S. openly admitted they were going to BRIBE Turkey to the tune of $24 billion Big Bucks. Unbelievable. And they said no!!!

I don't know if he's still there.

[ohio2007]

10. "History of coups "

Did Tayyip Erdogan take over the country in 1997 ?
article excerpt;


The protesters are concerned that the ruling party's candidate for the post remains loyal to his Islamic roots.

The candidate, Abdullah Gul, earlier said he would not quit despite growing criticism from opponents and the army.


...

Our correspondent in Istanbul says the army statement late on Friday night caused a real stir in Turkey.

Many also believe that it is also a message to the judges in the constitutional court to declare the vote invalid and dissolve parliament, she adds.

The army has carried out three coups in the last 50 years - in 1960, 1971 and 1980 - and in 1997 it intervened to force Turkey's first Islamist Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan, from power.


....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/europe/6604643.stm



Seems the army will cast the deciding for president and that also lewads me to believe the army voted "NO" to US ground assult on Iraq.
Doing that would have shown they lost control of the country imo

[athena]

14. Erdogan is the prime minister, not the president.

Turkey is a parliamentary democracy; while the president has veto power, his function is mostly ceremonial. Since 2000, the president has been Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist.

[YankeyMCC]

8. Might not be a bad idea to hold a similar event in the US

in support of secularism. :shrug:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. I'm in.

2 down. 999,998 to go.

[Book Lover]

11. Moderately lower estimate in this IHT article

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/29/europe/EU-GEN-Turkey-Demonstration.php

Thousands of Turks protest pro-Islamic government

An estimated 700,000 pro-secular Turks marched in central Istanbul Sunday to demand the resignation of the government, which they fear is leading Turkey towards Islamic rule.

Protesters took to the streets following a sharp rise in tension between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government and the powerful pro-secular military, which accuses the government of encouraging radical Islam.

"Turkey is secular and will remain secular," shouted thousands of flag-waving protesters, many of whom traveled to Istanbul from across the country overnight.

The demonstrators sang nationalist songs and demanded the resignation of the government, calling Erdogan a traitor.

<continued at link>

[happyslug]

13. So the Turkish Army and its bureaucrats were able to get people to protest.

That IS NOT hard to do, i.e. tell the soldiers to show up in Civilian Uniforms, with other family members, make sure the command structure stays in place (i.e. transport groups by Squads, Platoon, Company, Battalion etc) and then make sure the TV cameras are where these "Civilians" appear. Such "Official" protests were even done in the old Soviet Union and other dictatorships. Such events are NOT hard to produce.

In sum, I do NOT give these protests much wait, I suspect the protesters are NOT protesting because they BELIEVE in secularism, but they were told to protest. The elections are a better idea of how the people of Turkey fell, and it is split but I suspect the islamics are stronger then the army if it came to a vote, but the army has the guns (Through both groups probably do not represent the majority of the Turkish people).

Election Results in 2002 (Where the AK won the most vote, but only 34% of the Vote).
http://www.practicalturkish.com/turkish-election-results-2002.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_general_election,_2002

Election are up this year, so this sounds like a Political stunt more than a real protest, the real test will be in the elections NOT in these protests.

A quick look at the election results in 2002 shows 34% of the population backed the AK party, another 9.5% supported the "True Path Party" another conservative party (Through more secular then the AK). The main "Secular" Party, the "Republican People's PArty" (Often called CHP, based on the its name in Turkish) came in Second to AK at 19.4% of the vote.

The real issue is can AK expand on its 34% vote? Can CHP Expand on its 19.4% of the vote? (And an both parties HOLD these numbers?) Together both parties make up slightly less than 54% of the Vote in 2002, thus either party can win by just convincing people to vote for them rather then for the various minor parties that received 45% of the vote (Including the 9.5% received by the "True Path Party"). Thus the vote is more important then a campaign stunt like getting these people to protest.

[athena]

15. Wear the tinfoil hat much?

Turkey has a sizable minority that's staunchly secular and is very afraid of what might happen if all three levels of government are ruled by people of the same party. There is no way the military could fake a protest like this. Besides, why would they need to? They already have the power to ban the AKP and replace the government with people of their own choosing.

[happyslug]

16. In almost any county you can get the support of 10-20% of the population

Simply by paying them. This is true of a Democracy (look at Bush's Level of Support), a Communist Dictatorship (Even after the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian Communist Party had over 20% of the votes), or an islamic Republic like Iraq (under Saddam) and Iran (Under the present rulers).

My point was Democracy requires 50% of the vote, not 10-20%. The Islamic parties could win the upcoming elections WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF the 10-20% of the Population that are the most Secular. That is referred to as "Democracy". Even in Venezuela the opposition has produced some impressive rallies against Chavez, but he continues to win elections.

My point is these protest are meaningless, a huge rally is NOT that hard to produce if people within the Government wants one (i.e. the Army). Opposition rally are often more impressive, for it shows THE LACK OF SUPPORT FOR THE GOVERNMENT AS A WHOLE. This Rally just shows that everyone new, that the Army oppose the AK party. The real test is can these protest be converted to VOTES. If the CHP expands the number of votes it receives THEN THESE PROTEST MEANT SOMETHING, but if AK expands it vote totals, the protests were meaningless.

[denidem]

17. A party needs to pass a % threshold to get seats in Parlament...

It's a fairly high threshold too. There are many political parties, and in the last general election, only the AK and the CHP got a high enough percentage to get seats. All together, I know that the AK supporters are a minority, but the majority (secularists of all stripes) are splintered. There are also several ethnic parties (Kurdish, etc...).

[happyslug]

18. From what I read you need 10% of the vote to get into Parliament.

Thus Turkey suffers from the problem of proportional representation, i.e. whoever gets the most votes, win.

One problem when looking at Turkish politics is the effect of it being ILLEGAL to state you are for Islam. Any party that claims it is Islamic is banned in Turkey. What this has done is forced many parties (including the AK) to adopt policies that SOUND SECULAR (but may NOT be). In effect Radical Islam is underground in Turkey and as a underground movement fights through proxies. In addition to AK, at least three other parties appear to be Islamic without claiming to be so. The main opposition to such parties tend NOT to have clear hands (Having been instruments to destroy Communist linked parties in the 1960s-1980s through what we would call "Death Squads"). As to the left it was destroyed in the 1960s, with many of the Left's followers giving up on Communism and embracing Islam as the main way to oppose the traditional Conservative parties. Thus the Support for the AK may NOT be solely do to its limited embrace with Islam, it may just be to the rough economy Turkey has had in the last 20 years.

[IndianaGreen]

19. I don't understand why the EU sided with the sharia faction against secular Turks

EU showed a complete lack of knowledge of Turkish history, and a total disregard of the danger posed to all of us by militant Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

[ohio2007]

20. They don't want the Turks in the EU

catch 22

[ButterflyBlood]

21. Good for them

That's one part of the world that's definitely in need of more secularism.