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Turkish Government Raids Judiciary, Arrests 189 Judges And Prosecutors

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.

220px-Erdogan_croppedYesterday, police in Turkey served arrest warrants on one hundred, eighty nine appeals court judges and prosecutors in the latest post-coup attempt purges. Since the July, 15th military coup, seeking the ouster of dictator Recep Erdogan, thirty-two thousand individuals are currently in jail and over one hundred thousand were sacked from their jobs under the questionable accusation of aiding dissident Fethullah Gulen.

Ankara’s chief prosecutor attacked the judiciary, members of the justice ministry, the Court of Cassation (Turkey’s top appellate court), and the Council of State (the highest administrative court).

The purges are part of seemingly never ending act of paranoia by a dictator bent on returning Turkey to authoritarianism.

 
The latest basis alleged for subversive activities of members of the judiciary and prosecutors stems from the use of the smart phone app ByLock, which the intelligence services believe is used for communications with Gulen’s followers. In fact, the suspicion is so widespread that police detained the lead prosecutor tasked with investigating allegations of coup activities in Konya after discovering he was a ByLock subscriber.

On Thursday the purges continued into the education sector with the removal of two thousand five hundred teachers and one hundred nine judges from positions within the military court system.

Turkey without doubt is descending into a very bleak period. It is not going to end well.

By Darren Smith

The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.

24 thoughts on “Turkish Government Raids Judiciary, Arrests 189 Judges And Prosecutors”

  2. The problems we have with Erdogan are the problems we have with all dictators – abusing human rights, punishing speech, punishing dissent, and delusions of grandeur.

    So why do we allow our own nation to:
    1) crack down on free speech, especially in universities
    2) threaten students who merely write pro-Trump messages, as if there is only one State Approved candidate
    3) Look the other way when the establishment mows over other candidates to hand pick the nominee
    4) allow bias and bigotry against Christianity (or any religion)
    5) allow name calling if it occurs in the State Approved party, while harshly criticizing name calling from any other political party
    6) promote socialism, a favorite political platform of abusive dictators
    7) allow a presidential candidate’s entire circle of aids to receive immunity from the FBI in exchange for exactly nothing, and all plead the 5th in front of congress
    8) give congressional powers to the president
    9) applaud a president who boasts he “has a phone and a pen”
    10) ignore a 58% rise in black unemployment and skyrocketing welfare roles while claiming the State Approved Party policies are for the people
    11) ignore the IRS being used to target conservatives
    12) ignore social media being used to target conservatives

    Sometimes, abusive dictators rise at the will of the people, who may bitterly regret their actions when liberty is lost, irrevocably.

    To maintain our freedom, we need more free speech, more dissent, more speaking truth to power, even when it’s messy and harms our “own side.”

    I always try to look at trends in the term of centuries. At this rate of uber presidencies, what will our country look like in 100 years? 200 years? 500 years? What will be the long game final result of all these little shifts?

  3. Maybe Erdogan will make a better Turkey by these acts. Just like in the United States, judges and the courts seem to take on a life of their own. Erdogan is reminding the judges that they are not untouchable. Something that our judges need to be reminded of. Which, exactly how many federal judges have been impeached in the U.S.???

    A whole 15 since the founding. Only five in the last 70 years, and one of them is now a congressman.As wiki says:

    Since the impeachment process requires a trial by the United States Senate, and since the constitutional provision concerning federal judges’ tenure cannot be changed without the ratifications of three-fourths of the states, federal judges have perhaps the best job security available in the United States. Moreover, the Constitution forbids Congress to diminish a federal judge’s salary. Twentieth-century experience suggests that Congress is generally unwilling to take time out of its busy schedule to impeach and try a federal judge until, after criminal conviction, he or she is already in prison and still drawing a salary, which cannot otherwise be taken away (see Nixon v. United States, a key Supreme Court case about Congress’s discretion in impeaching and trying federal judges).

    As of 2015, federal district judges are paid $201,100 a year, circuit judges $213,300, Associate Justices of the Supreme Court $246,800 and the Chief Justice of the United States $258,100. All were permitted to earn a maximum of an additional $21,000 a year for teaching.[2]

    Chief Justice John Roberts has repeatedly pleaded for an increase in judicial pay, calling the situation a “constitutional crisis”.[citation needed] The problem is that the most talented associates at the largest U.S. law firms with judicial clerkship experience (in other words, the attorneys most qualified to become the next generation of federal judges) already earn as much as a federal judge in their first year as full-time associates.[3] Thus, when those attorneys eventually become experienced partners and reach the stage in life where one would normally consider switching to public service, their interest in joining the judiciary is tempered by the prospect of a giant pay cut back to what they were making 10 to 20 years earlier (adjusted for inflation). One way for attorneys to soften the financial blow is to spend only a few years on the bench and then return to private practice or go into private arbitration, but such turnover creates a risk of a revolving door judiciary subject to regulatory capture.

    Thus, Chief Justice Roberts has warned that “judges are no longer drawn primarily from among the best lawyers in the practicing bar” and “If judicial appointment ceases to be the capstone of a distinguished career and instead becomes a stepping stone to a lucrative position in private practice, the Framers’ goal of a truly independent judiciary will be placed in serious jeopardy.”[4]

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. Interesting post Squeek — just goes to show that these “public servants” are anything but. I wish they would build government housing in DC to house members of Congress — then we would see how many people would want to “serve” the public.

  4. Reading pro-Trump comments makes it very easy to see how dictators and demagogues have been supported throughout history by an ignorant, desperate, paranoid, public.

    1. I take it Jill’s a shill for Latin American neo-peronists and Steve Groen is making the case for Arab racketeers because they’re well-informed, at ease, and understand human behavior and motivation very well.

    2. So any analysis that takes HRC and the DNC to account supports Trump? How dishonest as you Clintonbots continue to flail and defend the indefensible.

  5. You realize that if Pres. Trump were order mass arrests among the appellate judiciary, BigLaw, and the law professoriate, stuff them onto ocean liners, and point them toward Argentina, he’d have excised the only malignant threat to democratic institutions we have.

    1. We are afraid of Pres.Trump doing those very things. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that there will be a President Trump. Hitler stuffed people into trains.

      1. @Dave, so your OK with things as they are? A woman who is above the law, her party plots against another member from seeking office, a press that is just a propaganda machine for a political organization, failure of the highest law enforcement agency in the nation to indict her. But your afraid of a guy who wants to put an end to that, so where does that put you?

        1. Yep, he’s OK with it. We live in a world where soi-disant progressives are uncritical admirers of just about every gross, criminal, vicious, unjustifiable cause you could imagine, from Black Lives Matter to Arab nationalist rackets to systemic vote fraud. What’s bizarre is that they think well of themselves.

  6. I agree with Justice Holmes.
    Erdogoat is like Hitler.
    When they came for the gypsies I did not say anything or object cause I was not one. When they came for the Jews, same thing. When they came for the intelligencia, same thing. When they came for me no one was left to object cause all the dumbshits were gone.

  8. To bad for Wells Fargo that their issues didn’t happen under HRC administration. She would just tell that CEO that if he made a hefty contribution to her re-election campaign or to the foundation, all his problems would disappear.

  9. Quote of the Day:

    “President is now bombing Yemen, pushing job killing, enviro wrecking, sovereignty stripping TPP. But the FLOTUS really nailed that speech.” -Jimmy Dore

      1. You mean she took time out from promoting inedible lunch menus and sunning herself in Nantucket?

  10. And this is a man with whom we continue to engage as an ally and the beneficiary of ten and hundreds of millions of dollars of aid and weapons! Shameful. Our leaders are either clueless or craven but in the end the result is the same. They ignore the needs of our people to be involved with countries rules by men who hates us and would just as easily kill us all as take our money. It is an appalling state of affairs which I don’t see changing anytime soon.

  11. I agree with Bendel Wendel. I do not like the world I am leaving to my grandchildren either. However my words remind me of the comments my Grandmother used to make as to the world she was leaving to me, that is 75 years ago in another world. Strangely, we – humans of the animal species – still keep on surviving regardless.

    1. Good point Graciela – however we should be beyond just surviving. We should be thriving. Corporate control and their profit before people and the environment is hastening destruction.

  13. There are times when I fear things in our country will not go well. I fear for my grandchildren who we always remind to respect the law and others.

    But with politicians who are not held accountable to laws, news media who report selectively not the truth and colleges and universities that have all but band free speech it will be a tough fight I fear.

  14. Let’s his hair grow a bit longer he could be VP for Comrade Clinton ….instead of that push over wimp she settled for. But them that move is the sign of a strong candidate. One that has it together, never forgets anything and does what she want even if the rest of us are to stupid to understand. The two of them fit in well in the worlds club of fascist leaders. As for the women she ….victimized. You lie with pigs you get dirty and eat slops. All they have to do is say NO to being victimized. Especially by HR Clinton.

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