The Army of the Imam: Avcı, Ergenekon and Epilogue

No translations were made between page 149 and 248, since there are too many, sometimes rather confusing details that can hardly (without further research) put in relation to the central message of the book. The details on the fate of Hanefi Avcı, who several months before Ahmet Şık published a book on the Gülen Parish infiltrating the police and other official organs, however, should be worth mentioning.

What is the Revolutionary HQ?

The name of Revolutionary Headquarters (Devrimci Karargâh DK) was heard after the investigations into Ergenekon started. This organization carried out two actions, before an armed clash occurred that was presented live on TV. When Hanefi Avcı was arrested as a supporter of the organization, after he had written a book targeting the Fethullah Parish, everybody became curious about such an organization. Journalist Gürkan Hacır wrote: ″Into the 40 years of armed left organization in Turkey this organization came down with a parachute. No tradition or fundament is known. No friends in the socialist left are visible.“

On the website of DK it is said that it emerged from the Bedrettin and the 16 June Movements in the summer of 2005 to become a centre of revolutionary resistance in solidarity with the Kurdish freedom line. Yet, the language used did not resemble the socialist left. This became obvious in the declaration on the arrest of Hanefi Avcı. On Necdet Kılıç who allegedly had made the contact to Hanefi Avcı it was said: "This person has no relation to our structure and is not registered. When as alleged he is called our financier we can easily say, Allah shall make him what he knows of him!“ The journal Democratic Transformation (Demokratik Dönüşüm) said to be the organ of DK clearly rejected this claim.

It could be argued that DK is a continuation of Partisan Path (Partizan Yolu) that Serdar Kaya, who now is shown as the leader of DK, founded in the 1970s. The website was hired in the Netherlands by a person that also hired a website on the name of Mahir Deniz (mixture of Mahir Çayan and Deniz Gezmiş) and showed an address next to Istanbul Police HQ in Vatan Caddesi No. 121. It started running in 12 June 2008, one month before the first indictment in the Ergenekon trial was made public. In the report of the department to fight terrorism at Istanbul Police HQ dated 9 December 2009 it was stated that among the digital information seized during operations against the organization no statute, financial information, self criticism or the like was found, unusual for a leftist organization.

Apart from the question marks on the existence of such an organization news in the pro Islamic press raised further doubt. On 20 March 2009 the TV station Samanyolu alleged that links between Ergenekon and some left organizations such as Hizbullah, PKK, DHKP-C, MLKP had been revealed and that a new organization had been activated: DK. It was further claimed that this organization financed itself by drug smuggling.

In the third indictment against Ergenekon statements of secret witnesses and confessors termed DK the city structure of people escaping the ranks of the PKKKurdish Workers' Party . A denunciation that was made to the police in Istanbul on 15 July 2009 went into the same direction. The e-mail named some addresses of soldiers in Gölcük alleging that they were involved in drug trade. On 17 July 2009 the houses of these soldiers of the marine were raided and the soldiers Yiğithan Göksu, Yakut Aksoy, Ülkü Öztürk, Tarık Ayabakan, Sinan Efe Noyan, Sezgin Demirel, Oğuz Dağnık, Mehmet Orhan Yücel, Koray Kemiksiz, Halit Mehmet Ergül, Fatih Göktaş, Faruk Akın, Burak Özkan, Burak Düzalan, Burak Amaç, Barbaros Mercan, Alperen Erdoğan, Ali Seyhur Güçlü were to become defendants in the Ergenekon trial. Besides some explosives and drugs books of Abdullah Öcalan were found.

None of the lieutenant was identified as having used drugs, but the police alleged that evidence was found on memory cards that showed a link to the DK. Yet, none of these memory cards had been used on the computers of the lieutenants. The so called April bulletin was of specific interest, because the Ergenekon defendant Doğu Perinçek appearing as the ″President“ allegedly gave orders such as ″Major Mücahit Erakyol shall organize the forming of new teams, the final authority for orders shall be with Levent Bektaş“ in this bulletin. The defendants later stated that the police had placed the memory cards at their homes.

What we have tried to express (after citing many more rather confusing details; DTFDemocratic Turkey Forum ) is not that the DK is an organization of Ergenekon, but rather in the contrary that it is an organization guided by the State. We cannot form a certain judgement that someone of DK is in direct contact with the State, but can show the fact that the attempt was made to show the organization being guided by Ergenekon.

How a hunter of terrorists becomes a supporter

In the 600-page of Hanefi Avcı the part entitled ″Parish“ created excitement because of the allegation that the Fethullahçıs were about to take over the State by first infiltrating the police and later the bureaucracy. AKPJustice and Development Party and the ″parish media″ first tried to show the book as an initiative of the wing opposed to the amendments of the Constitution. Later they maintained that it was an attempt to white wash Deputy General Director for Security, Emin Arslan. The allegations of Hanefi Avcı included the claim that police officers did not act under the directives of the chief of police or the governor, but the imams of the parish. He also maintained that illegal relationships existed between some prosecutors with special authority in provinces such as İstanbul, Ankara, Erzurum and İzmir and units of the police, even outside these provisions. He had tried to inform superiors and members of the government, but when he did not see a reaction he had decided to write the book.

Hanefi Avcı has tried to answer the accusation via his lawyers and correspondence from prison, but his voice was not heard or there was no wish to hear it. I've written to him in Silivri Prison and asked some questions. He said that he would answer them via intermediates that visit him. The book will be finished with the answers that he will provide.

Epilogue

Since the Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002 the organization of the Fethullahçıs within the police was often made the subject. Since the operations against Ergenekon with many defendants coming from military ranks started, the police officers conducting the investigations have become the target of criticism. Many of the police officers and particularly the prosecutor Zekeriya Öz were accused of belonging to the Fethullah Parish.

We certainly do not know whether the names, persons and institutions at the heart of the accusations are Fethullahçıs or not. But looking at the existing situation the finding is not wrong that the Ergenekon investigation and trial is a tools for the AKP to restrict freedoms. Some people argue that parishes are organizations of civil society. It needs to be discussed whether this is true for the Gülen movement. Even if we do not know how widespread the organization of the ″golden generation″ in the police force and in the Turkish Armed Force is, can we say that this parish is indeed civil? Or can we say that they do not want to govern the State according to the own belief?

The aim of our book is certainly not to white wash the police officers and defendants in the Ergenkon trial that are subjected to a number of accusations. We only wanted to show what happens to those who say ″the king is naked″, because there are almost no media organs and journalists who do so. Therefore, there was a serious increase in books in the Ergenekon and similar investigations during last time. Besides those who wrote books, because they could not write articles are certainly books that evaluate news in order to realize a "manufacture of consent″. But as long as the allegations of tie guardianship increases it may not be difficult to write a book in a country where news cannot be made, but it appears to be pretty difficult to reach the audience.

The series of translated passages

• The Army of the Imam: Who are the Nurcus?
• The Army of the Imam: Who is Fethullah Gülen?
• The Army of the Imam: Infiltrating the Police
• The Army of the Imam: Trial of the Gülden Parish
• The Army of the Imam: Avcı, Ergenekon and Epilogue