EMASYA abolition a milestone in clearing remnants of Feb. 28

Although 13 years have passed since the postmodern coup of Feb. 28, 1997, in which the military overthrew a coalition government led by a now-defunct conservative party, Turkey is still influenced by some of the decisions made by the National Security Council (MGK) on Feb. 28, which were intended to strictly protect the state ideology.

EMASYA is also believed to be a product of the Feb. 28, 1997 military intervention as it was signed by the General Staff and the Interior Ministry after the Feb. 28 intervention. It enabled the armed forces to intervene in social incidents without a directive from a governor’s office and gave the military the authority to gather intelligence against internal threats. “EMASYA is a result of the Feb. 28 postmodern coup. When we look at the setting, the date and those behind the protocol, it is obvious that it was a product of a military intervention,” said Radikal daily columnist Cengiz Çandar in earlier remarks to Sunday’s Zaman.

The Feb. 28 period was not, of course, limited to EMASYA. The MGK decisions, 18 in total, are still largely implemented. and Turkey is prevented from taking any steps that could go against them. “There have been some changes in the ‘operations’ of Feb. 28 since then; however, there have not been fundamental changes to the basic issues,” says Bugün daily columnist Ahmet Taşgetiren. Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Taşgetiren said the biggest impact Feb. 28 had was on education. “The headscarf ban is still in place with all of its strictness. Similarly, a lower coefficient system used to calculate the scores of graduates of vocational high schools in the university exam still in place, although the gap was reduced,” he notes.

Past failures

As Taşgetiren noted, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government, had earlier attempted to bring some of the remnants of the Feb. 28 era to an end but faced resistance from the judiciary and bureaucracy. In 2005, the Constitutional Court annulled a widely supported constitutional reform package that would have lifted the long-standing ban on headscarves at Turkish universities, which started to be strictly imposed during the Feb. 28 period. In the 20-page decision, the court stressed that the headscarf legislation, which was supported by 411 deputies in Parliament, had political and religious motivations, and the move was unsuccessful.

In a more recent case, the 8th Chamber of the Council of State decided to block a decision made by the Higher Education Board’s (YÖK) General Council in July after the İstanbul Bar asked it to ensure that the system in which a lower coefficient is used to calculate the scores of graduates of vocational high schools in Turkey’s university admission exam, the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS), remain in place. The system, which was also introduced during the Feb. 28 period in an attempt to keep students from imam-hatip schools -- classified as vocational schools -- out of universities, is considered by many to be a clear form of discrimination against graduates of vocational schools. Upon the court’s decision, YÖK partially solved the problem by reducing the gap between the coefficient used for vocational high school graduates and those of others; yet it failed to eradicate the discrimination due to legal hurdles.

Another remnant of Feb. 28 waiting to be done away with is the age limit imposed on children who wish to attend Quran courses offered free of charge at mosques in the summer months. As a result of the Feb. 28 period’s polices, children younger than 12 in Turkey are not allowed to attend those courses, a topic of heated debate in the country. Although State Minister Faruk Çelik vowed to eliminate the age limit late last year, the issue was not included in a recent bill on religious affairs by the government, which became a source of disappointment for many.

Elimination of EMASYA a start, new constitution final aim

Observers agree that the abolition of EMASYA should be the start of Turkey’s struggle to do away with the anti-democratic measures of the Feb. 28 period. Taşgetiren thinks that military tutelage still maintains its grip on Turkey today. “The prime minister of this country said he had bitter experiences in the past when he commented on a military hospital’s refusal to allow his headscarf-wearing wife to enter its grounds. This shows that Feb. 28 still affects politics in Turkey. The abolition of EMASYA can be a starting point. The military’s attitude was also positive about this issue. All problems should be solved with the same sensitivity,” he says.