How does Turkey's terrorist look to the ECtHR?

The AİHM's decision on Selahattin Demirtaş, which skipped the domestic legal remedies by taking a shortcut even though they had not been exhausted, honestly did not surprise me at all. Yet the fact that this decision has not surprised us is itself no good omen. On the one hand, there is a process under way between Türkiye and the AB that works toward mutual cooperation and integration, and both sides benefit from this process.

To this end, Türkiye has for a long time followed a program of fulfilling the negotiation conditions placed before it on accession to the AB. Everyone sees and follows that domestic political or sociological conditions have been compelling in pursuing some of this program's requirements. Even so, Türkiye made an extraordinary effort to meet these conditions. It persistently put into practice democratic reforms of its own and harmonization chapters in various fields.

Frankly, these reforms were reforms that had to be made even without the binding force of agreements with the AB. They were all measures in Türkiye's own interest. Türkiye's liberation from military tutelage, the steps taken on the path of democratization, the steps taken on human rights and freedoms, were matters that were on the AK Parti's own program independently of the AB as well. Even so, these reforms were not easy. At times they were very painful. The country was subjected to sabotage by deep state elements who wanted to obstruct them and by the seemingly illegal terror organizations they used.

It paid very heavy prices because of terror organizations, and, interestingly, the very organizations that most resisted Türkiye's desired change were also the elements that benefited most from the reforms made and tried to build shields out of these reforms for their own illegal activities.

As for the AB, it became evident over time that while it expected Türkiye to open the negotiation chapters, fulfill their requirements and close them, it was at the same time in strategic solidarity with the organizations that sabotaged these reforms. On 15 July, when Türkiye wrote an epic together with its people in defending its own democracy, the AB did not stand by Turkish democracy. On the contrary, it displayed a much more open solidarity with those who wanted to carry out the coup.

Today this is one of the greatest ruptures with the AB. FETÖ, for its part, was an extralegal, supra-legal parallel structure that had infiltrated and nested itself in Turkish democracy and disrupted the democratic functioning of the system in every respect. It constituted the most concrete example of everything that used to come to mind when "deep state" was mentioned. It was a structure organized outside the state-within-the-state hierarchy, bypassing laws, law and institutions. With the exposure of all of this structure's institutionalized mafia-style actions, its final act was the 15 July coup attempt. We have grown used to seeing the AB in this coup attempt not on the side of Turkish democracy but more on the side of this terror structure that had set out to destroy it.

This is not the only reason, of course, why we are not surprised by the AİHM decision.

Against the PKK, which tried to keep Turkish democracy under pressure with acts of terror, even to take it hostage, and which brought to Türkiye the loss of 50 thousand lives, instability and countless acts of terror, the AB never understood, or never wanted to understand, Türkiye's sensitivity. "Not having wanted to understand" is by far the stronger possibility, because it is quite clear that its attitude was to clear the way for the role that the PKK represents. Türkiye's terrorist never appeared to the AB as a terrorist. Those who carried out acts of terror against Türkiye and slaughtered innocent people never moved the AB. For them the PKK was perhaps a movement waging an ethnic struggle for liberation.

To be fair, let us not take away its due: we certainly cannot say that this is the attitude of Europe as a whole. On the contrary, even in Europe's official discourse and records the PKK is still registered as a terrorist organization. Within the AB, whose official discourse is this, the populist dynamics lean much more easily, knowingly or unknowingly, toward sympathy for every move against Türkiye. One must not ignore that historical anti-Turkish sentiment, Turkophobia and Islamophobia are these days joined by an Erdoğanophobia caused by a rising Türkiye. One must also see that the lobbying activities of PKK, HDP and FETÖ circles that appeal to these phobic feelings are very effective. We cannot say that the members of the AİHM have been protected from this ideology.

Incidentally, I had in fact written here before, on another occasion as well: I have no intention of going into the content of the defenses anyone makes in the cases in which they are tried, or into their consistency or inconsistency. As a matter of principle, whatever the charges, however apparent, on which they are tried, I believe in the sanctity of the right of everyone on trial to defend themselves. However much the judiciary in Türkiye is from time to time the subject of criticism for politicization, it works in the end.

However opposed I may be politically, I refrain from expressing my views in a way that would intervene in the right of defense of those on trial. The possibility that people on trial may turn out innocent must, above all, be more gladdening for humanity. Innocence must always be given more chance of winning, wherever and under whatever ideological or psychological constraints it may have found itself.

Nevertheless, no one should expect us to ignore the passing of the ball between the AİHM's involvement in the matter in this way and the figure of Demirtaş. And no one can convince us at this hour that this passing has anything to do with law. The AİHM is officially supporting terror in Türkiye. It is trying to make a hero of democracy out of the persona of Demirtaş.

Yet even Demirtaş's crimes, which could be called caught red-handed, stand out much more as acts supporting violence and terror against democracy. Demirtaş's performance in bringing people out into the streets, especially during the events of 6-7 October, is ignored. How 53 of our citizens, first of all Yasin Börü, lost their lives through a process of lynching as a result carries no importance in the AİHM decision. Likewise the PKK youth organization's trench terror, which it unleashed in the cities of the Southeast under the name of self-rule and which led hundreds of people to their deaths, and Demirtaş's own open support for it and his steering of the HDP youth toward it, are of no concern to the AİHM.

It is quite clear that the sensitivity shown toward a persona identified with these crimes has nothing to do with democracy and human rights. With this decision, the AİHM has merely made its side a little clearer in the face of the terror to which Türkiye has been subjected, that is all.