ALEVI LEADER SAYS TURKISH JUDICIARY CAN UNRAVEL ERGENEKON

Today’s Zaman
Jan 28 2009
Turkey

An Alevi leader who was on the hit list of the "deep state"-related
gang formation Ergenekon has said he believes the Turkish judicial
system will untangle the Ergenekon case.

Ali Balkız, leader of the Alevi BektaÅ~_i Federation (ABF), said
the investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine network suspected of
plotting to topple the government, is complicated but that it is the
duty of the judiciary to unravel it.

"The Turkish judiciary is mature and able enough to do this," he said
on Tuesday in Frankfurt, where he was invited to speak at a symposium
titled "Contemporary Alevism."

A new phase of detentions in the Ergenekon investigation at
the beginning of January revealed that the group was planning to
assassinate Alevi and Armenian community leaders, the prime minister
and members of the Supreme Court of Appeals — acts that would have
dragged Turkey into chaos had they been carried out. The group was
plotting to kill prominent Alevi community leaders such as Balkız
and Kazım Genc as well as Sivas Armenian Community President Minas
Durmaz Guler and a number of journalists.

Following the revelations, Balkız was provided with bodyguards. He
said he is trying to get used to the presence of his guards and added
that he had not received any death threats.

"I was apparently targeted as a community leader. Maybe it is because
I’ve been saying that I want democracy, equality and brotherhood. We
are on the hit list because we want Sunnis and Alevis, Turks and
Kurds to live in fraternity. Those who try to destroy these ideas
are traitors."

Balkız added that secularism has not been implemented in any real
sense in Turkey because the state controls religion. Part of the
problems connected to Alevi demands relate to this fact.

–Boundary_(ID_gk/I3ByfsKEbEFkydIiJ9g)–