From confession to slander: new tactics from FETÖ

It would of course be naive to expect an organization in which lying has turned into a common code of conduct among all its adherents to tell the truth in the courts today. Thank God the judges and prosecutors immediately catch the contradictions with their cross-examinations and throw them in their faces, so that at least their lying becomes thoroughly notorious.

This organization is one that until now has shown great skill in portraying, as it pleases, all the truths both about itself and about the world. They have a religious understanding that legitimizes lying for themselves as an ethical code of conduct, and perhaps even has it recorded in the ledger of good deeds. However, in order to legitimize this lying so much, they must in fact also see a difference of religion between themselves and those who are lied to.

Interestingly, until now the members of this organization have deceived time and again people whom they did not regard as their own, that is, as of their religion, by collecting those people's donations and help. They financed all their activities with donation money collected from people they did not regard as their own. Knowing that if they stated their intentions openly people would never help them, would never support their activities, and would probably even drive them away, they always concealed their intentions, aims and goals.

Such a deep behavior of secrecy inevitably leads to the emergence of a personality that is different in degree. Today we watch the behavior, the theater, the shows of those personalities in front of the courts and are surprised. Yet there is nothing to be surprised about. With all the group's lies having come out and all its intentions having come out, we expect that it should have dissolved, that no one should believe in the organization's leader and its aims any longer. But we do not take into account this organization's own psychology. Because we do not, we are surprised that so many people display the same behaviors in a harmony of obedience to an order they have received from one center.

The likelihood that the group is still nourished by a common value is also very high. That the detainees display an incredibly common and similar style of behavior must stem from the fact that communication among them under prison conditions is very easy and possible. Their being together enables them to immediately set in motion a repair therapy in the face of the collapse of the common story on which they rest. All the deficiencies of the collapsed story are remedied and it is perhaps put back into operation more strongly. True, they do not fail to suffer some attrition at every juncture.

For many, the collapsed "Hizmet" story may also not be possible to put back together. Right after 17-25 December, a significant mass was able to turn this destruction into an enlightenment and managed to part ways with the organization. What was said by a group of former Gülenists, who published Ahmet Taşgetiren's letter addressed to Gülen in recent days, showed in this respect that even in FETÖ-ism the door to return is not completely closed.

But precisely at this point a matter that requires care also comes to the fore. Unfortunately, this structure's performance of lying, its having turned taqiyya into a common norm, also damages trust toward those who confess, who repent, who engage in self-criticism. There are nearly two hundred thousand people who were dismissed from their posts by decree-law (KHK) because of FETÖ links. Most of these are based on the identification of ByLock, which constitutes definitive evidence of organizational connection. Many of them are, in addition, based on findings about union membership or Bank Asya accounts that were found to be actively operated at certain times. These findings are actions caught in the system electronically, without being subject to any personal assessment. Even so, of course, even in these there may be human error. The phone on which ByLock was detected may belong to someone else, there may be another reasonable explanation for a bank account movement. Here, of course, an interpretation and assessment versed in human relations must come into play. Prosecutors and judges in particular need to be very careful in this regard.

FETÖ'S GUIDE, THE PKK

Some of the findings also emerge from the investigations of the relevant institutions or prosecutors' offices. Here it is very important that prosecutors' offices or the relevant institutions act with great care and responsibility also against the slanders resorted to under intense pressure to confess by those who have been identified as FETÖ members and whose statements have been taken.

Information that looks like confession may be nothing but a slander, which is quite simple for FÖTÜ members. For them, creating more victims at present has become one of the most effective ways of widening their own base. Just like the PKK: the more people it could infect with the victimhood of terror crime in one way or another, the more it widened its base. That is why from every house someone had to be either in the grave, in prison or in the mountains, so that it would be possible for the organization to spread its influence across the entire region without doing any propaganda at all. It is very clear that FETÖ has taken some tactics from the PKK in this style of propaganda.

Unfortunately, a significant portion of the victimhood stories originates from this point.

Moreover, the 17-25 December date should be applied as a starting criterion not to only some but to everyone. Of course not everywhere, but the victimhood stories we often hear in the cases that come to us stem from the failure to draw a date distinction regarding attendance at study circles or donation gatherings. Having joined a study circle, having attended their schools or having subscribed to their publications can be an indicator of affiliation with the organization only if, in itself, it was repeated insistently after 17-25 December, when it came out in broad daylight that they are a criminal organization.

Showing officiousness in this matter and going further would be of no benefit either to establishing justice or to making the struggle against FETÖ more effective. On the contrary, it would serve to stick even those who are in a state to hate FETÖ onto FETÖ as a base.