A strike against democracy

The dead number 17; over 150 the injured. The terror attack in Istanbul on Sunday 27 July has sent shock waves through the city of Istanbul, and also through Europe. It was a deliberate trap. It happened in two stages: a first small explosive charge was detonated in a telephone kiosk; then, a few minutes later, a powerful bomb placed in a litter bin exploded, causing a massacre among the crowd that had in the meantime flocked to the site of the first explosion. The bomb blast occurred in a crowded commercial area in the suburban district of Gungoren, on the European bank of the Turkish capital. The NTV channel begun almost immediately to transmit images from the scene of the blast.Extremely tense situation. The terrorist outrage occurred on the day before a very important day for Turkey: on the Monday following the bomb blasts, the Turkish Constitutional Court met in Ankara to pronounce on the dissolution of the ruling AKP party, accused of wishing to introduce Islamic law in the secular country with a Muslim majority, thus violating the principle of secularism on which the Turkish Republic is founded. The eleven judges of the Court will remain in camera until they have reached a sentence, with a majority of at least seven votes. Other than either accepting or rejecting the demand for the dissolution of the AKP, the Court could opt for an intermediate solution, such as depriving the AKP of public funding. The members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) include the Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan and the President of the Republic Abdullah Gul. So, in the event of the Court ruling to dissolve the party, Turkey would be thrown into a grave and confused political crisis. Europe’s condemnation. The terror attack was condemned by NATO, of which Turkey is a member, and by the European Union. The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and the solidarity of the EU “with the Turkish people in their struggle against terrorism”. A condemnation “in absolute terms” of the bomb blasts in Istanbul has also been issued by the chairman of the Congress of the Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, the Turk Yavuz Mildon, who is linked also for personal reasons to the city on the Bosphorus. “These barbarous attacks cannot be described as anything other than absurd crimes” “whatever the reasons in the name of which they were committed”. According to Mildon, elected to the top post of the Congress in Strasbourg in May this year, the bombs “brutally remind us of the constant need to flank the fight against terrorism, in every possible way, with the local authorities, given that their populations are the first to suffer from the consequences” of terrorism. Yavuz Mildon presented his condolences to the families of the victims and “pledged his solidarity with the inhabitants and authorities of the city of Istanbul”.Concern and appeal of the Church. Contacted on the telephone by SIR , Monsignor Luigi Padovese, vicar apostolic of Anatolia and President of the Turkish Bishops’ Conference, spoke of his “feeling of apprehension” and immediately pointed out that the Turkish Constitutional Court met on the day following the massacre to decide on whether to ban the ruling party AKP which is accused of wishing to introduce Islamic law in what is a secular country with a Muslim majority. “We await the sentence of the Constitutional Court – said the bishop – to know what decisions it will take. These bombs have a very clear aim, that of destabilizing a situation that is already fairly disturbed. It’s clear that a day before the court meets to pronounce sentence, the situation can only be read in this way”. “Any appeal we can make is worth next to nothing, also because we are hardly a representative church. Despite that, our appeal – added the bishop – is that democracy be allowed to prevail in this country”. “The problems that exist in Turkey – comments Mgr. Padovese – are linked to positions of power. There’s a need to safeguard secularism and at the same time the right to give to this secularism a democratic expression. A democracy always represents a risk, but to democracy there are no alternatives. So far the situation in Turkey has remained in this impasse precisely due to the deadlock of opposing powers. It’s rather like a tug of war in which neither the one side nor the other succeeds in getting the upper hand, with the result that the country always remains torn between both”.