Turkey’s Islamists Under Legal Siege

The beleaguered Islamist movement in Turkey came under further pressure Monday as this capital’s chief prosecutor, Nuh Mete Yuksel, sought the closure of the pro-Islamic Virtue Party, saying it is seeking to overturn the country’s secular constitution and to introduce Islamic rule.

The move to ban Virtue is in line with a sustained military-led campaign to crush political Islam, which remains the nation’s most vibrant and popular movement. It comes less than two months after Turkey’s chief prosecutor, Vural Savas, initiated legal proceedings to shut down the nation’s largest pro-Kurdish party, the People’s Democracy Party. And its timing, analysts say, suggests that it is also intended to reduce Virtue’s chances in nationwide parliamentary elections scheduled for April 18.

Recent opinion polls suggest that the Islamists will come out on top, as they did in the last elections, held in 1995.

Turkey’s armed forces, which have seized power three times over the past four decades, continue to describe Islamic radicalism and Kurdish nationalism as the foremost dangers threatening the Turkish republic.

In a six-page file submitted to chief prosecutor Savas, Yuksel cited various “anti-secular” speeches made by Virtue officials and the party’s continuing links with Necmettin Erbakan, the former Islamist premier, as evidence against the party.

Erbakan’s rise to power in 1996 marked the start of a protracted standoff between the Islamists and the rigidly pro-secular armed forces, which culminated in his resignation a year later. Just months later, Erbakan was barred from politics for five years on charges of seeking to introduce Islamic rule. His Islamist Welfare Party was banned on similar charges.

The Islamists, who with 144 lawmakers command the largest bloc in the 550-member Turkish parliament, regrouped under Virtue and a new leader, Recai Kutan. But Erbakan, 73, continues to dominate the movement, not least because he controls the vast flow of funds from party sympathizers based in Europe, party insiders say.

A growing number of Virtue officials, however, are beginning to criticize Erbakan, saying he has sacrificed the party on the altar of his ambitions.

“If this party is shut down, he is fully to blame,” said a Virtue lawmaker, who declined to be named.

Tensions between the Islamists and their pro-secular rivals have sharply escalated in recent weeks as Virtue has backed moves by a group of lawmakers to postpone the elections and to topple Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s minority government.

But their campaign began to rapidly lose steam after Turkey’s powerful army chief, Huseyin Kivrikoglu, warned against a delay in the elections and tampering with the constitution. This, he said, would drag Turkey into chaos and permit Islamic radicalism to emerge as an even greater threat.

The impact of his words was widely felt, and rebel lawmakers failed to pass a no-confidence vote against Ecevit in Monday’s session.