Turkey: "Rally for the Republic"

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

What do you think of this "Rally for the Republic"?

<http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070414-073357-8578r>
Turkey, mass gathering to oppose Islamist presidency
AFP
April 14, 2007

ANKARA --  Hundreds of thousands of people from all over Turkey
gathered in Ankara Saturday for a mass rally aiming to discourage
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a conservative with an Islamist
political past, from running for the presidency.

The crowd, many of them waving the red and white star and crescent
flag of Turkey, and bearing portraits of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the
founder of the modern republic, filled four major arteries for a
length of several kilometers as they marched on Ankara's sprawling
Tandogan Square.

> From there, under the watchful eye of a 10,000-strong police presence,
chanting slogans and waving placards, they slowly edged toward the
nearby Mausoleum of Ataturk.

Police told the NTV news channel that at least 100,000 people had
arrived by bus from around the country, and Ankara-bound trains and
planes were packed Friday and overnight with people pouring into the
capital for the demonstration.

The organizers, non-government organizations led by the Association of
Ataturk Thought, said they hoped to attract more than 1 million people
to make their "Rally for the Republic" one of the largest Turkey has
ever seen.

Deniz Baykal, leader of the social-democratic main opposition
Republican People's Party was among the crowd, as was Zeki Sezer,
chairman of the Democratic Left Party.

The crowd chanted "Turkey is secular, it will remain secular" and
waved placards reading: "Democracy does not mean tolerating reaction,"
and "Cankaya [site of the presidential palace in Ankara] will not be
home to [religious] sheikhs and brotherhoods."

Erdogan, who has yet to say whether or not he will run for the largely
symbolic presidency, is widely criticized by Turkey's secular
establishment, including the powerful army, which remains skeptical of
his avowed rejection of his radical Islamist past.

Candidacies for the presidency can be submitted from Monday morning to
midnight April 25, and many believe Erdogan will apply for the
country's top job.

"They want to slowly transform Turkey into Iran or Saudi Arabia,"
retired teacher Mehlika Erecekler, 44, said, "but they cannot because
they are afraid of the army. We support the army."

"God preserve us from sharia [Islamic law]," she said.

Another demonstrator, retired government employee Ayda Aysel, 66,
said: "I have seen my share of coups [in Turkey, where the army
intervened in 1960, 1971, and 1980] and every coup put Turkey back by
10 years. But if [Erdogan] becomes president, it will put Turkey back
by 100 years."

Many oppose the idea of Erdogan's wife, Emine, who always wears the
Islamic headscarf hated by most secularists as a symbol of religion in
politics, becoming Turkey's first lady and one headscarf-wearing
demonstrator agreed.

Durdu Kuran, a 41-year-old agricultural worker from the southern town
of Finike said: "I do not want Erdogan to become president because he
exploits our religion, he exploits the headscarf."

Turkey's president is elected for a single seven-year term by
parliament, where Erdogan's Justice and Development Party holds a
comfortable majority.

<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Turkey_March.html>
Saturday, April 14, 2007 · Last updated 8:16 a.m. PT
300,000 march against Turkey's leader

By SUZAN FRASER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The fiercely pro-secular military staged three coups between 1960 and
1980 and retains a strong influence over politics.

"We hope that someone who is loyal to the principles of the republic -
not just in words but in essence - is elected president," Gen. Yasar
Buyukanit, chief of the military, said Thursday in a statement widely
interpreted as a warning to Erdogan not to run.

Any serious tensions between the government and the military could
have a serious effect on the economy, analysts warn.

The demonstration at times turned into a pro-military rally, with a
changing of the guard accompanied by shouts of "Turkey is proud of
you!" to the soldiers.
--
Yoshie