[Event of the week]
Council of State once again rules against ending coefficient system

The coefficient system was introduced during the Feb. 28, 1997 postmodern coup period in an attempt to keep students from religious imam-hatip schools -- classified as vocational schools -- out of universities. The system has been the subject of strong criticism in Turkey as it is clearly unfair toward graduates of vocational schools -- including imam-hatip schools.

Last July, YÖK decided to totally abolish the coefficient system, regarded as a “groundbreaking” move to eliminate inequality between the graduates of vocational schools and all other high schools in Turkey.

Shortly after the YÖK decision, the İstanbul Bar Association asked the 8th Chamber of the Council of State to ensure that the coefficient system remains in place. In late November, the court ruled to retain the system, arguing that the abolishment of the coefficient system would damage the integrity and harmony in the Turkish education system. The court also added that the move to remove the coefficient was against the law and the principle of equality and would lead to damage that is impossible to repair.

Undaunted by the court’s decision, YÖK appealed the ruling and in December attempted to partially solve the problem by reducing the difference in the coefficients used to calculate scores of regular and vocational high school students to 0.13 percent.

The İstanbul Bar Association, however, asked the Council of State to again rule against the YÖK move in late December. The bar request was denounced by many civil society organizations and vocational school students. The 8th Chamber of the Council of State, however, turned ignored all calls and ruled on Monday to retain the notorious coefficient system.

Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, who called pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) leader Selahattin Demirtaş to express his sadness over an attack on the BDP headquarters on Feb. 5, described the incident as a “provocation.” He also told Demirtaş that he would visit the BDP headquarters in the coming days to offer congratulations to the new BDP administration.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blamed the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for increased tension in the aftermath of a brawl in Parliament on Feb. 2 and said his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) would not fall into the trap by engaging in a polemical war of words and political provocations.

Feb. 7 Sunday

President Abdullah Gül departed for a six-day state visit to India, making him the first Turkish president to visit the South Asian country in 15 years. Speaking at a press conference held in İstanbul ahead of his departure, Gül underlined that India has the second largest population in the world and the third largest economy in regard to its gross national income.

Feb. 8 Monday

The 8th Chamber of the Council of State once again ruled to retain a system that uses a lower coefficient to calculate the university admission examination scores of graduates of vocational high schools. The system makes it more difficult for vocational school graduates to enroll in a program of their choice.

Osman Gürbüz, a suspect in the investigation into a clandestine gang known as Ergenekon which is charged with plotting to overthrow the government, delivered his defense testimony at the 36th hearing of the combined Ergenekon trial -- in which suspects charged in the second and third indictments prepared thus far in the investigation are standing trial -- at the İstanbul 12th High Criminal Court. A tea garden owned by Gürbüz was frequently visited by members of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), police and gendarmerie officers as well as officers from various intelligence departments, according to the suspect’s testimony.

The “deep family” of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was fatally shot by an ultranationalist teenager outside the Agos weekly in 2007, was present during the 12th hearing of the Dink trial. By calling themselves the “deep family,” the Dink family’s supporters were making a reference to the “deep state,” which is believed to have played a role in Dink’s murder.

Several individuals who attacked the pro-Kurdish BDP headquarters with pump-action rifles on Feb. 5 were detained in Balıkesir. Unidentified individuals in an automobile opened fire on the BDP’s headquarters in Ankara at around 10 p.m. Nobody was killed or injured in the attack.

The İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality Transportation Coordination Center (UKOME) decided to lower Metrobus fares from TL 2 to TL 1.50 in line with a ruling by an administrative court in İstanbul last month suspending last November’s fare hike.

The editor-in-chief of the Taraf daily, Ahmet Altan, who testified to a military prosecutor as part of an ongoing probe into an alleged military plot to topple the government that was exposed by the newspaper, said they had no doubt about the authenticity of the plot documents. Altan was summoned by the 1st Army Command Prosecutor’s Office to testify as a witness as part of the investigation launched by the General Staff into the alleged military plot named the Sledgehammer Security Operation Plan.

A staff colonel who reportedly committed suicide on Monday afternoon in the Aegean province of İzmir was the latest in a long list of recent alleged suicides by members of the military. Col. Berk Erden from the Southern Sea Base Command in İzmir reportedly shot himself at his house. An investigation was launched into the incident by the military prosecutor’s office, while his body was taken to the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) for an autopsy.

Only one of the two people stranded in a tree for hours due to flooding in Antalya was found when friends rented a boat to rescue the pair after municipal teams failed to respond in time. During the flooding, Ali Riza Türktaş (30) and Mustafa Dolapçı (51) escaped from the vehicle they had been traveling in after it became stuck in floodwaters and then climbed up a nearby tree. Türktaş was rescued and brought to the hospital by ambulance but Dolapçı was not.

Feb. 9 Tuesday

Several nongovernmental organizations held a demonstration in İstanbul’s Taksim square in protest of a Council of State ruling retaining a system that uses a lower coefficient to calculate the university admission examination scores of graduates of vocational high schools. Members of the Freedom Association (Özgür-Der), the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER) and the Education Personnel Labor Union (Eğitim Bir-Sen) gathered in front of the Galatasaray High School in Taksim and walked toward the İstanbul Bar Association while chanting slogans and carrying placards.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal claimed that former French President Jacques Chirac once asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not to take his wife to France during an official visit.

Parliament was the scene of a fierce battle of words between Prime Minister and AK Party Chairman Erdoğan and MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli as a result of increased tension between the two politicians since Feb. 2’s brawl between deputies from their parties.

The Supreme Court of Appeals’ General Criminal Council rejected an objection lodged by the court’s prosecutor’s office against a Supreme Court of Appeals’ 9th Criminal Chamber ruling that had overturned a lower court decision acquitting Pınar Selek, a sociologist and suspect in an investigation into an explosion that caused the deaths of seven people in İstanbul’s Mısır Çarşısı (Spice Bazaar) in 1998.

Feb. 10 Wednesday

Thirty-two people were detained in a raid carried out as part of an ongoing investigation into the Kurdish Democratic Confederation (KCK), an organization that allegedly functions as the urban arm of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In the raid, ordered by the Van Prosecutor’s Office, 15 were detained in Hakkari’s central district; 11 in the Şemdinli district; and six others in Yüksekova. Police staged simultaneous raids at various addresses in these districts, officials said.

Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan said he will submit protocols signed by Turkey and Armenia for the normalization of bilateral relations between the two estranged neighbors to the Armenian parliament for ratification. He said, however, that he expected Turkey to ratify and start implementing the protocols before Armenia.

Remarks by main opposition CHP leader Baykal, who on Feb. 9 claimed that Prime Minister Erdoğan had been asked by France not to bring his headscarf-wearing wife on a visit, were denied by both the Prime Ministry and the French Embassy in Ankara.

The body of the last person missing in severe storms and flooding in Antalya was located.

The body of Mustafa Dolapçı (51), who died after waiting in a tree for hours for help to arrive amid flooding on Feb. 8, was located in the early morning hours in a cornfield 15-20 meters from the tree.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç publicly apologized to Deputy Parliament Speaker Güldal Mumcu for his attitude toward her last week when tensions ran high in Parliament.

Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, the chairman of the Çukurova Group, which has high-flying companies in telecommunications, media, manufacturing and energy, was found guilty of illegally extending loans through his formerly seized bank, Pamukbank, and was sentenced to 11 years, eight months in prison. The businessman was also ordered to pay TL 471.95 million to cover losses he had caused to the state.

Feb. 11 Thursday

Family members of writers and intellectuals assassinated for political reasons over the past few decades in unsolved murders visited Parliament, where they met with political party representatives and Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali Şahin. The group included members of the families of many of Turkey’s brightest minds killed during a time span of more than six decades.

Alleged killer Cem Garipoğlu took the stand in the first hearing of a trial on the grisly murder of a young woman in İstanbul last spring, as the court ruled to merge two indictments regarding the homicide. Garipoğlu faces 18 to 24 years in prison if convicted of the murder of his girlfriend, Münevver Karabulut, whose body was found in a trash bag in a dumpster with her severed head in a guitar case atop her corpse in March 2009.

A meeting with ambassadors of European Union member countries accredited to Ankara offered Prime Minister Erdoğan the opportunity to state his belief that the EU’s tendency to become an isolated body is discouraging for both the European and the Turkish public.

Feb. 12 Friday

Worker and civil servant unions met to plan the next steps in the nearly two-month-long Tekel protest, deciding to extend it and take the implementation of temporary work law Article 4/C for workers dismissed from privatized state-owned enterprises to the Council of State. Article 4/C is a law enacted in 2004 to provide workers previously employed in state-owned enterprises with 11 months of temporary employment in the public sector if dismissed due to privatizations.

The Web site of bilingual Armenian weekly Agos, whose former editor-in-chief Dink was shot dead by a teenager in 2007, was hacked by an ultranationalist group that posted a photo of Dink’s suspected hit man on the page.

Mehmet Erdoğan, the nephew of Prime Minister Erdoğan, was convicted on charges of drug trafficking and sentenced to prison by an İstanbul court, the Vatan daily reported.