Where to start correcting this ‘mistake?’
If you think you can be at home or at your office in peace, you are wrong. No such thing is possible anymore; the police can be at your door at any moment, just for you to know.
Somebody who does not like you may call the police espionage line and say, for instance, you are a “smuggler.” As a result of this, the police will come to your door. If you want to see their identities, they may reply, “You open the door first, and then we will show you.” If you do not personally know the civilian authority of where you live or if you do not have some special people to protect you, they can even break down your door and enter.
All of this has been experienced.
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş was tipped off to the police as a “fuel oil smuggler.” Someone gave his address and police came to his door.
Demirtaş reacted to the police and told them they cannot search his house. The police were insistent. Then the Diyarbakır governor was informed of the situation and instructed the police to leave. The six policemen who persistently wanted to go into the house left the compound upon the governor’s instruction.
The security department said the police had the wrong address and the raid was “by mistake.”
Supposedly, laws and the constitution have guaranteed our fundamental rights, but this does not matter because this country is a police state now.
They might receive a tip off, and then, without any need to investigate, research, interrogate, knock on your door. If you ask for their identities, they would say “Open the door and we will show you then.” When you open the door there is no guarantee that they won’t just enter with a shoulder move. They do not feel the need for a search warrant from a prosecutor or court. The reasoning or justification from the police department is: “It was done by mistake.”
I don’t know where to start correcting this “mistake.”
The freedom of the president to commit a crime
Upon the president’s holding of election rallies, the opposition filed a complaint against him to the Supreme Election Board (YSK). Here is what President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on this matter: “They have filed a complaint to the YSK, saying that the president should be banned from holding rallies. They do not know the constitution. Read the constitution and see where the president can ever commit a crime. There is no crime attributed to the president except for treason.”
Yes, this is how it is written in the constitution; the president cannot be held responsible from his acts, he cannot be tried except for treason. Well, this is because this constitution was written for coup leader Kenan Evren so that he would not be tried or held responsible for his presidential acts.
The substance of the “non-liability of the president” should not be confused with acting irresponsibly. These are two different matters.
The reason for this is that it is widely believed a person who has been elected as the president of the country and who has taken an oath on his honor and pride to be impartial would not break his oath.
However, here you see that Erdoğan has been elected and he sees no harm in violating the constitution. He holds an election rally every day; he has ripped off his impartiality oath.
He believes he can commit other crimes in the future; he thinks nobody can ever “touch” him. Yes, true, nobody can prosecute him, but with this behavior he is damaging a very important institution, casting a shadow upon its reputation.
The YSK indeed does not have the powers to prevent the president from doing what he is doing. But the YSK should not forget they are the body responsible for conducting “fair, equal and secure” elections.
The television channels that broadcast the president’s election rallies are violating this and the YSK has jurisdiction over that, and a duty. YSK should do what it needs to do.
