Radicalisation is one of the reasons of escalation of violence and disruption of social cohesion in modern democratic societies. Although there are many reasons that can be listed breeding the radicalisation, being subject to injustice state practises is one of the prominent factors in this domain. If people who are within this circumstances lose their hope to find a remedy to their sufferings, they are open to manipulation of radical groups and unfortunately they might easily be deceived by these groups to be part in much radical activities.
In the last three decades of Turkish Politics, radicalisation has always been a problem that its long-term consequences generally ignored by the Turkish State Elite. Millions of people who have different ideological, ethnic and religious background radicalised by state policies due to lack of empathy towards the rightful demands of these people. Despite many innocent and less political costly demands of these people were feasible with small policy changes at the beginning, ignoring or sometimes taking punitive actions against these people created radicalised groups who later became a headache for Turkish politicians. Their radicalised views became much more difficult to control and the danger they disseminated and economic burden they caused became much more costly for Turkey.
One of the cautionary radicalisation story in Turkey is formation of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which should be seen as a lesson for current Turkish politicians. When Abdullah Ocalan established the PKK with his friends, it was not a very popular armed group among Kurdish people living in Turkey. In its first years, recruiting new members was not significant in comparison to the other radicalised leftist groups. However, after the military coup in 1980, heavy handed state policies to eliminate all opposition groups caused radicalisation of many people who suffered from these policies. The PKK who found a sanctuary in Syria at that time recruited many of these people and it was easy for the PKK to manipulate them for its own cause.
When the PKK began to target security forces and the civilians in the Southeast of Turkey, the prime minister of the time Turgut Özal defined the PKK as "bunch of bandits" and in order to fight against the PKK, the war on terror model preferred by Turkish political elite. In this respect, many villages were evacuated in the name of fighting PKK and hundred thousands people were displaced from their homes with no housing and employment opportunities. These people found shelter in the suburban areas of big cities such as Diyarbakır without the support of the government and they were open to manipulation of the PKK. The kids who were grown up with this hatred later were recruited by the PKK or its legal institutions in Turkey.
Apart from these domestic problems, people who escaped to abroad created a Kurdish diaspora in Europe. They used Turkey's heavy handed policies to justify their own political cause and undermined Turkey's diplomatic arguments in Europe and extradition demands from European countries. The diasporic activities of the PKK found strong support from the European Parliament because Turkey's human rights violations are not easy to tolerate by European politicians which are also contradicting with Europe's founding democracy principles.
Since from the early 1980's, the PKK not only survived in the region but also caused a big cost for Turkey. According to the state authorities, billions of dollars were spent for defence industry rather than investing the region for education, industrial development and improvement of infrastructure. Moreover, more than forty thousands people lost their lives within this conflict. Sacrificing many youngster who had the ability to contribute Turkey's development in this endless conflict was another human resource loss for Turkey.
In the initial years of formation of the PKK, the Kurdish people who are not affiliated with the PKK but victimised by wrong state practises, were only demanding to use their cultural rights rather than seeking autonomy. However, the fear of Turkish State Elite that these demands can pave the way of Kurdish Federal State in Turkey ended up with injustice state policies and in the end the PKK did not only eliminated but also became a prominent political actor both in Turkey and in the region nearby Turkey. In recent years, the Syrian crises is now providing new opportunities for the PKK and its affiliates to accomplish their autonomic dreams.
In view of the PKK story, Turkey is again in the edge of radicalisation of another group of people who seems to be victims of the FETO investigations. After the July 15 bloody military coup attempt, more than hundred thousands of people were dismissed from their jobs and thousands of private companies and their assets were confiscated in order to prevent new FETO attempts to overthrow Justice and Development Party (AKP) Government. In consideration of the danger that Turkish democracy faced with the military coup attempt, no body was expecting Turkish Government to remain silent to this foolish attempt. The existential threat that Turkey faced must be handled without a doubt in an urgent manner. Therefore, declaration of emergency law not much questioned by majority of Turkish society and found considerable support due to it is necessity and urgency.
However, by the time passed, the investigations against the FETO raised new doubts about the intention of the investigations and more questions began to ask whether these investigations are genuinely targeting real FETO members who act consciously to achieve their networks ambitions. As seen on news apparently, the mess with these investigations starts with the criteria set for prosecuting FETO members and unfortunately there are many inconsistencies in it that needs to be corrected as soon as possible.
First consistency starts with when the time-line should start to be considered affiliated with FETO membership. Some of the people who are close to AKP government defends that 17-25 December 2013 is the milestone to be associated with Gulenists. However, after that time FETO linked schools, financial institutions and union/s were operational and there was no legal action taken against these institutions for their link and support on a terrorist organisation. Therefore, transaction with these institutions during that period cannot be a reason of judicial and administrative investigations because of their legal status. However, looking from other side of the coin, if these institutions were linked with terrorist organisation and they were left open intentionally, there is an absolute negligence of state authorities who let them to be operational after 17-25 December. Then these state officials who are responsible for their negligence must be investigated for helping and abetting a terrorist organisations rather than the people who took service from them. If the time-line starts earlier than 17-25 December 2013, which is also seen in many cases, more people must be accountable for being FETO membership. In this situation, much broader investigations should start including many politicians and senior state officials who let Gulenists or FETO members to diffuse state institutions.
Second important inconsistency is the way of investigation process. Although the leader cadre of FETO has been known for long years by intelligence community and they could easily be detained after 17-25 December 2013, they all escaped to other countries before they were get caught. In consideration of the size of FETO network in Turkish state, it is not appropriate to blame government for this negligence because most of these FETO members were notified by its network members in the early stage of investigations. However, after the military coup attempt, rather than focusing on prosecuting senior FETO members, choosing to punish people who have no role in FETO network made FETO investigations more vulnerable for criticism.
If it is explained by Narcotics analogy, narco networks have three layers namely gang leaders, distributors and users. The leaders are responsible for production of drugs and they make the highest profit for their own good. Without the leader, other layer of network is inefficient and easy to disintegrate. The distributors are not as important as leader but they are responsible providing drug to users. Their efficiency highly dependent on the leader and without the support of leader they are useless. However, their role between provider and user makes them responsible for their wrong action. The last category, users, have no influence or role in this network. They are deceived by distributors and they are the victims of this network. For an efficient struggle against narco networks, law enforcement agencies target distributors and gang leaders to eliminate the network. However, they also rely on the information gathered from users to reach distributors. When they are in touch with users the main idea is not to punish them rather rehabilitating these people and dissolving the narco network who produce and distribute the drugs.
In view of this analogy, the fight against the FETO is made on the wrong direction. From the beginning of these investigations a bottom-up approach is preferred rather than top-down. The bottom-up approach unfortunately turn into punishing people who are deceived by FETO network rather than catching higher layers of the network. While the leader and senior members of the network managed to escape to abroad, the bottom layer of the network suffered and victimised by these investigations. As many people began to suffer in these investigations more focus attracted the attention on irregularities in these investigations and inconsistencies began to undermine legitimacy of fighting FETO.
Thirdly, there is no certain crime linked criteria within these investigations. As earlier mentioned, in order to accuse someone for being a member of a terrorist organisation, their contribution or support to organisation must be decided illegal by courts and it must be supported by concrete evidences. If people supports banned institutions of this network or use their banned communication methods, they have no excuse to get away from these investigations. However, there is gray area to clarify when these institutions were banned and how these were linked with crime according to penal code principles. Furthermore, the criteria set for FETO investigations must be applied every suspect equally and discrimination among suspects must be refrained. If these conditions cannot be met in appropriate way, people who suffer from these investigations and their families may lose their hope on justice and this could end up with a bigger crowd who are angry towards Turkish state and its institutions.
In consideration of the difficulties identifying the FETO members who have a tendency to hide their identity, no one is questioning difficulties during the investigations that state authorities are facing. Fighting against a big clandestine network is not easy for everyone who took part in these investigations. However, ongoing disproportional and reckless investigations and unfair judicial processes carrying risks radicalisation of these people. The main reason pushing these people to radicalisation is not being investigated by the state authorities rather losing their faith to justice that needs to be provided by governmental institutions, fair and impartial courts. Many people who are victims of these FETO investigations have no idea what they are accused of despite they lost their jobs. Furthermore, the legal procedure established recently seems far behind to reinstate their sufferings in closer future.
The problems linked with these people are not only limited with legal rights but also having difficulties to find a job to look after their family. Contrary to the President Erdogan's knowledge, it is impossible for civil servants who are dismissed from their jobs by legislative decrees to find a job in private companies. The main reason that private companies refrain to hire these people is there is no certainty that employing these people may end up with financial investigation of companies by state authorities. Not only private companies but also many international NGO's and international organisations operating in Turkey such as United Nations, Council of Europe and European Union offices refraining to employ these people not to have a problem with Turkish Government. Within these circumstances, victims of these investigations left with empty handed how to overcome the financial problems they are facing.
The major risk with increasing number of victims is radicalisation of these people and their families. As discussed earlier, similar to the PKK case punishing people who are not affiliated with FETO or no role in their network creates an injustice feeling on these people. If no immediate solution can be found in the near future, these people will disintegrate from the existing political system and they will have no concerns about their future. In other words, they will have no fear to lose which will make them open to manipulation of radicalised groups.
In this respect, the AKP Government must be careful and vigilant not to create new FETO investigation victims. If they insist on doing the same mistakes made in the initial stages of FETO investigations, they will create a new radicalised group/s similar to the PKK by their own hands. If an immediate solution cannot be find integration and rehabilitation of these people, their radicalised views will not be easy to control in the following years and they will be as costly as the PKK to Turkey. Furthermore, unable to find a fair approach towards these people who somehow manage to go abroad may create a new diaspora in foreign countries. Their anger towards the AKP government will be used by foreign associations against Turkey and Turkey's rightful extradition demands will remain unanswered by its Western Strategic Partners.
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