Erdogan: Current Constitution Cannot Sustain the New Türkiye

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks on Monday following a cabinet meeting in Ankara. (Turkish Presidency)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks on Monday following a cabinet meeting in Ankara. (Turkish Presidency)
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Erdogan: Current Constitution Cannot Sustain the New Türkiye

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks on Monday following a cabinet meeting in Ankara. (Turkish Presidency)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks on Monday following a cabinet meeting in Ankara. (Turkish Presidency)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed his resolve to draft a new constitution for the country, saying the one in force after the military coup of 1980 cannot sustain the new Türkiye.

“It's not possible for the current constitution to sustain Türkiye anymore,” Erdogan said following a cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday.

“Despite all the amendments introduced to the current constitution, we have not been able to eliminate the spirit of guardianship that the coup plotters have injected into it,” he said.

“The Turkish democracy should settle old scores with the tradition of coups by adopting a new and civil constitution,” he added.

Erdogan also stressed that he does not want a new constitution for himself. “Türkiye needs this. This is what our nation needs. Future generations deserve to be governed by a liberal constitution,” he said.

After being re-elected to a new and final presidential term in May 2023, Erdogan pledged to introduce a new liberal civil constitution to replace the current one, which according to him, is “a product of the (1980) coup.”

His insistence raises concerns that the move will help him cement his power indefinitely by allowing him to run for president again in the 2028 elections.

On Tuesday, Erdogan welcomed a Turkish court sentence of ex-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, to 42 years in prison and HDP's former co-chair Figen Yuksekdag to 30 years and three months for their alleged involvement in the Kobani protests in 2014.

The protesters in Türkiye’s mainly Kurdish southeast accused the Turkish army of standing by as ISIS militants besieged Kobani in plain view just across the Syrian border in October 2014. The protests led to the deaths of 37 people.

Speaking at the appointment ceremony of judges and public prosecutors, Erdogan said: “Ten years after the insurrection attempt, we see that justice has been served, albeit late, and we are pleased with this.”

He dismissed the sharp criticism of the judiciary for the overblown rulings in the case and called them politicized.

“We know well, especially from our experience, the damage caused by political and ideological polarization in the judicial system. We won't let that happen again,” he said.

The Kobani trial involved 24 convicted politicians among 108 defendants, who were sentenced to a combined 407 years and seven months in prison.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."