 |
Pro-Kurdish BDP demands abolishment of EMASYA protocol
Demirtaş, through a parliamentary inquiry, asked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to disclose and rescind the Protocol on Cooperation for Security and Public Order (EMASYA), which allows the commander of a garrison in a town to employ his military units in the event of an emergency without the prior approval of the governor and envisages the dependence of police intelligence services and the gendarmerie on military intelligence.
The controversial protocol was signed by the General Staff and the Interior Ministry on July 7, 1997 and empowers the military to intervene in social incidents on their own initiative. In accordance with EMASYA, the military can gather intelligence against internal threats.
When revelations showed after the Feb. 28, 1997 postmodern coup that secret files were being kept on governors, provincial governors and other civilian authorities, then-Naval Forces Commander Adm. Güven Erkaya said EMASYA had been prepared to meet the information needs of the West Study Group (BÇG), a clandestine group formed within the army. Though the protocol was met with harsh criticism by politicians and analysts, it remained in force.
Demirtaş said the existence of the EMASYA protocol entirely contradicts the concepts of democracy and the rule of law.
“The government claims that it is elevating the standards of democracy, but there are many implementations that contradict this claim, and EMASYA is a good example of this,” Demirtaş told Today’s Zaman.
In his inquiry, he asked whether there are EMASYA centers in cities other than in east and southeast Anatolia and how many people were killed during incidents of public unrest in which EMASYA protocols have been implemented.
“When I was doing my military service in 2006 in İstanbul, we engaged in EMASYA exercises. These protocols are also implemented in [predominantly] Kurdish cities,” he said.
Demirtaş added that in incidents of public unrest, if there are deaths, the perpetrators are usually not found, a situation that leads them to question whether the EMASYA protocol is the main reason behind this and what its contents might be.
The protocol was also a target of European Union criticism in its 2007 progress report on Turkey. The report read that the 1997 EMASYA secret protocol remains in force. “The protocol, signed by the General Staff and the Interior Ministry, allows for military operations to be carried out for internal security matters under certain conditions without a request from the civilian authorities. No change has been made to the Turkish Armed Forces Internal Service Law and the law on the National Security Council. These laws define the role and duties of the Turkish military and grant the military a wide margin of maneuver by providing a broad definition of national security. No progress has been made in enhancing civilian control over the gendarmerie when engaged in civilian activities,” the report reads.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ |  |
||
| Google kidnaps Gül! | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| İHSAN YILMAZ |  |
||
| The Egyptian elections, Islam and Islamists | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Operational errors | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| There is need for a new initiative | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| HASAN KANBOLAT |  |
||
| Are Russian tourists being discouraged from visiting Turkey? | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
| KLAUS JURGENS |  |
||
| Back to the ’80s | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
