Justice and Development Party: Difference between revisions
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Elections section is unnecaserry also when tf these guy committed genocide? I know they stink but genocide? When? |
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{{ | {{Mature}}{{Important}}{{Evil Organization | ||
|Image = Justice_and_Development_Party_(Turkey)_logo.svg.png | |||
| | |fullname = Justice and Development Party | ||
| | |alias = AK Parti<br>AKP<br>Malum Parti<br> Shoe Box Party | ||
| | |origin = Turkey | ||
| | |foundation = 14 August 2001 | ||
| | |dissolution = | ||
| | |headquarters = Çankaya, Ankara, Turkey | ||
| | |commanders = [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan|Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]]<br>[[Abdullah Gül]]<br>[[Ahmet Davutoğlu]]<br>[[Binali Yıldırım]] | ||
| | |agents = | ||
| | |skills = Brutality<br> | ||
Political influence<br> | |||
| | [[Propaganda]] | ||
|goals = To improve democracy in Turkey <small>(formerly)</small><br>To have Turkey join the European Union <small>(formerly)</small><br>To destroy the modern secular Turkey and to bring back the Ottoman State <small>(ongoing)</small> | |||
|crimes = Mass [[murder]]<br>[[Torture]]<br>Unlawful imprisonments<br>Abuse of power<br> Corruption<br> Oppression<br>[[Authoritarianism]]<br>Treason<br>[[Terrorism]]<br>[[War crimes]]<br>[[Crimes against humanity]]<br>[[Arms trafficking]]<br>[[Money laundering]]<br>[[Drug trafficking]]<br>Smuggling<br>Having ties with criminal and terrorist organizations<br>[[Propaganda]]<br>[[Censorship]]<br>Bribery<br>Obstruction of justice<br>Slander<br>Fraud<br>Threats<br>[[Defamation]]<br>[[Cruelty to animals]]<br>Nepotism | |||
|type of villain= Power-Hungry Corrupt Officials | |||
}} | |||
The '''Justice and Development Party '''(Turkish: ''Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi'', AKP), abbreviated officially '''AK Parti''' in Turkish, is a conservative political party in Turkey. Developed from the conservative tradition of Turkey's Ottoman past and its Islamic identity, the party is the largest in Turkey. Founded in 2001 by members of a number of existing conservative parties, the party has won pluralities in the five most recent legislative elections, those of 2002, 2007, 2011, June 2015, and November 2015. The party held a majority of seats for 13 years, but lost it in June 2015, only to regain it in the snap election of November 2015. Its electoral success has been mirrored in the three local elections held since the party's establishment, coming first in 2004, 2009 and 2014 respectively. The current party leader is [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]], the President of Turkey. | |||
Shortly after formation, the AKP portrayed itself as a pro-Western and pro-American party in the Turkish political spectrum that advocates a liberal market economy including Turkish membership in the European Union. The party has for a long time been supported by the Cemaat Movement of exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose influence in the judiciary has helped to weaken the opposition against the AKP. Having been an observer in the center-right European People's Party since 2005, it later left to join the eurosceptic Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) on 13 | Shortly after formation, the AKP portrayed itself as a pro-Western and pro-American party in the Turkish political spectrum that advocates a liberal market economy including Turkish membership in the European Union. The party has for a long time been supported by the Cemaat Movement of exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose influence in the judiciary has helped to weaken the opposition against the AKP. Having been an observer in the center-right European People's Party since 2005, it later left to join the eurosceptic Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) on November 13<sup>th</sup>, 2013. | ||
Controversies over whether the party remains committed to secular principles enshrined in the Turkish constitution despite their Islamist origins have dominated Turkish politics since 2002 and has resulted in numerous unsuccessful closure cases. | Controversies over whether the party remains committed to secular principles enshrined in the Turkish constitution despite their Islamist origins have dominated Turkish politics since 2002 and has resulted in numerous unsuccessful closure cases. | ||
Nationwide protests broke out against the alleged authoritarianism of the AKP in 2013, with the party's heavy-handed response receiving international condemnation and stalling the party's once championed EU accession negotiations. Since then, the party has brought about tighter regulations on internet use, abortion and alcohol consumption, having temporarily blocked access to Twitter and YouTube in March 2014. Especially after the government corruption scandal involving several AKP ministers in 2013, the party has been increasingly accused of crony capitalism. The AKP favours a strong centralized leadership, having long advocated a presidential system of government and significantly reduced the number of elected local government positions in 2013. | AK Party has an important place in Turkish politics since 2002. It is the sixth largest political party in the world in terms of the number of members and the political party with the most members in the world, excluding political parties in India, China and the USA. | ||
==Formation== | |||
The AKP was established by a wide range of politicians of various political parties and a number of new politicians. The core of the party was formed from the reformist faction of the Islamist Virtue Party, including people such as [[Abdullah Gül]], Bülent Arınç. A second founding group consisted of members of the social conservative Motherland Party who had been close to Turgut Özal, such as Cemil Çiçek and Abdülkadir Aksu. Some members of the True Path Party, such as Hüseyin Celik and Köksal Toptan, joined the AKP. Some members, such as Kürşad Tüzmen had nationalist or Ertuğrul Günay, had center-left backgrounds while representatives of the nascent 'Muslim left' current were largely excluded. In addition a large number of people joined a political party for the first time, such as Ali Babacan, Selma Aliye Kavaf, Egemen Bağış and Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. All of these people joined Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to found the new party. | |||
==Ideology== | |||
Although the party is described as an Islamist party in some media, party officials reject those claims. According to former minister Hüseyin Çelik, "''In the Western press, when the AKP administration – the ruling party of the Turkish Republic – is being named, unfortunately most of the time 'Islamic,' 'Islamist,' 'mildly Islamist,' 'Islamic-oriented,' 'Islamic-based' or 'with an Islamic agenda,' and similar language is being used. These characterizations do not reflect the truth, and they sadden us.''" Çelik added, "''The AKP is a conservative democratic party. The AKP's conservatism is limited to moral and social issues.''" Also in a separate speech made in 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated, "''We are not an Islamic party, and we also refuse labels such as Muslim-democrat.''" Erdoğan went on to say that the AKP's agenda is limited to "conservative democracy". | |||
The party's foreign policy has also been widely described as Neo-Ottomanist, an ideology that promotes renewed Turkish political engagement in the former territories of its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire. However, the party's leadership has also rejected this label. | |||
===European affiliation=== | |||
In 2005, the party was granted observer membership in the European People's Party (EPP). | |||
In November 2013, the party left the EPP to join the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (now Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe) instead. This move was attributed to the AKP's disappointment not to be granted full membership in the EPP, while it was admitted as a full member of the AECR. It drew criticism in both national and European discourses, as the driving force of Turkey's aspirations to become a member of the European Union decided to join a largely eurosceptic alliance, abandoning the more influential pro-European EPP, feeding suspicions that AKP wants to join a watered down, not a closely integrated EU. | |||
==History== | |||
===Closure cases=== | |||
The Justice and Development Party has faced two closure cases in its history. Just 10 days before the national elections of 2002, Turkey's chief prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoğlu, asked the Turkish constitutional court to close the Justice and Development Party, which was leading in the polls at that time. The chief prosecutor charged the Justice and Development Party with abusing the law and justice. He based his case on the fact that the party's leader had been banned from political life for reading an Islamist poem, and thus the party had no standing in elections. The European Commission had previously criticized Turkey for banning the party's leader from participating in elections. | |||
The party again faced a closure trial in 2008. At an international press conference in Spain, Erdoğan answered a question of a journalist by saying, "''What if the headscarf is a symbol? Even if it were a political symbol, does that give right to ban it? Could you bring prohibitions to symbols?''" These statements led to a joint proposal of the Justice and Development Party and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party for changing the constitution and the law to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves at state universities. Soon afterwards, Turkey's chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya, asked the Constitutional Court of Turkey to close down the party on charges of violating the separation of religion and state in Turkey. The closure request failed by only one vote, as only 6 of the 11 judges ruled in favour, with 7 required; however, 10 out of 11 judges agreed that the Justice and Development Party had become "''a center for anti-secular activities''", leading to a loss of 50% of the state funding for the party. | |||
==Criticism== | |||
Critics have accused the AKP of having a 'hidden agenda' despite their public endorsement of secularism and the party maintains informal relations and support for the [[Muslim Brotherhood]]. Both the party's domestic and foreign policy has been perceived to be Pan-Islamist or Neo-Ottoman, advocating a revival of Ottoman culture often at the expense of secular republican principles, while increasing regional presence in former Ottoman territories. | |||
The AKP are staunchly "anti-academic" with many academics, researchers and teachers being sacked from their positions since the failed coup attempt in 2016. An alleged 13,000 tons of textbooks were scrapped and the rest expunged of ‘terrorist’ content. Primary, lower secondary and secondary school students spent most of the first day of school watching videos about the ‘triumph of democracy’ over the coup plotters, and listening to speeches equating the civilian counter-coup that aborted the takeover with historic Ottoman victories going back 1000 years. Campaigns are being organised to release higher education personnel and to drop charges against them for peaceful exercise of academic freedom. | |||
Imprisoning of political activists continue, the chair of Amnesty Turkey has been jailed for standing up to the AKP on trumped up "terrorist charges". These charges have drawn widespread international condemnation, including from the US State Department, the EU and many international and domestic human rights organisations. | |||
==Controversies== | |||
===Torture and censorship during Gezi protests=== | |||
Nationwide protests broke out against the alleged [[authoritarianism]] of the AKP in 2013, with the party's heavy-handed response receiving international condemnation and stalling the party's once championed EU accession negotiations. Since then, the party has brought about tighter regulations on internet use, abortion and alcohol consumption, having temporarily blocked access to Twitter and YouTube in March 2014. Especially after the government corruption scandal involving several AKP ministers in 2013, the party has been increasingly accused of crony capitalism. The AKP favours a strong centralized leadership, having long advocated a presidential system of government and significantly reduced the number of elected local government positions in 2013. | |||
Much of the Turkish media downplayed and censored the protests, especially in the early stages. The government estimates that approximately 3.6 million people actively participated in approximately 5,000 demonstrations across Turkey linked to the first Gezi Park protests. Twenty-two people died and more than 8,000 were injured, many seriously. During the protests, the government used [[police brutality]], and some sources mention that some stray animals were injured during the suppression of the protests. | |||
===2013 corruption scandal=== | |||
The 2013 corruption scandal in Turkey or 17–25 December Corruption and Bribery Operation was a criminal investigation that involved several key people in the Turkish government. All of the 52 people detained on 17 December were connected in various ways with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Prosecutors accused 14 people – including Suleyman Aslan, the director of state-owned Halkbank, Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, and several family members of cabinet ministers – of bribery, corruption, fraud, money laundering and gold smuggling. | |||
At the heart of the scandal was an alleged "gas for gold" scheme with Iran involving Aslan, who had US$4.5 million in cash stored in shoeboxes in his home, and Zarrab, who was involved in about US$9.6 billion of gold trading in 2012. Both men were arrested. The scheme started after Turkish government officials found a loophole in the U.S. sanctions against Iran that allowed them to access Iranian oil and gas. Turkey exported some US$13 billion of gold to Iran directly, or through the UAE, between March 2012 and July 2013. In return, the Turks received Iranian natural gas and oil. The transactions were carried out through the Turkish state-owned bank, Halkbank. In January 2013, the Obama administration decided to close this loophole but instead of immediately charging Halkbank, the U.S. government allowed its gold trading activities to continue until July 2013, because Turkey was an important ally regarding the American-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War, and the U.S. had been working on a nuclear deal with Iran. | |||
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister of the period, claimed that the judiciary and police officers who carried out the investigation were directed by the [[Fethullahists|Gülen Movement]] and were involved in the "parallel state" structure. Following the investigations, Egemen Bagis was dismissed from his position as Minister of European Union Affairs. Minister of Internal Affairs Muammer Güler, Minister of Economy Zafer Çağlayan, Minister of Environment and Urbanization Erdoğan Bayraktar resigned from their ministerial positions; Bayraktar also resigned from his seat in parliament. In the vote held in the Turkish Grand National Assembly on January 5, 2015, it was decided not to send former ministers to the Supreme Court. | |||
Then-Prime Minister Erdoğan (now President of Turkey) was on a tour of Pakistan when the scandal broke, which analysts believe changed the response of the AKP, or influenced those with the tapes to leak them at a time when Erdoğan was visiting an ally (Pakistan). | |||
==Groups within party== | |||
Tayyipists are the structure that constitutes those who support Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The group represents the Erdoğanism view within the party. | |||
Pelikanists are a group that is close to [[Berat Albayrak]] and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and supports the liquidation of those who do not comply with the main line of the party. The existence of the Pelican group was revealed through Redhack. It is thought that this group played a role in Ahmet Davutoğlu's resignation. | |||
Soyluists are the group that supports former Democratic Party chairman Süleyman Soylu's entry into the AK Party and his position as Minister of Internal Affairs. | |||
Bilalists are the pro-Erdoğanist group within the party, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son Bilal Erdoğan. | |||
The disgruntled group is the group that defines those who disapprove of the party's recent policies. Ideologically, it supports the liberal, conservative and pro-European Union views of the AK Party in its early years. It is said that former president Abdullah Gül, [[Bülent Arınç]], [[Ali Babacan]], founder of the Democracy and Progress Party, who left the AK Party, and Ahmet Davutoğlu, founder of the Future Party, led this group. | |||
Davutoğlu supporters are the group that supports Ahmet Davutoğlu's prime ministership and views. It differs from the party's mainstream politics in that it is more Islamist in outlook and advocates ummahism instead of nationalism. The group, which has become unpopular in recent times, disbanded after Davutoğlu left the party and founded the Future Party. | |||
==Notable supporters== | |||
*[[Nationalist Movement Party]](currently) | |||
*[[Grey Wolves]] (currently) | |||
*[[Fethullah Gülen]] and [[Fethullahists]] (formerly) | |||
*[[Sedat Peker]] and his mob (formerly) | |||
*[[Muslim Brotherhood]] | |||
*[[Yeni Akit]] | |||
*[[Yeni Şafak]] | |||
*[[Kadir Mısıroğlu]] | |||
*[[Mehmet Cengiz]] | |||
*[[AK Trolls]] | |||
{{Important}} | |||
[[Category:List]] | [[Category:List]] | ||
[[Category: | [[Category:Turkey]] | ||
[[Category:Evil vs Evil]] | [[Category:Evil vs. Evil]] | ||
[[Category:Lawful Evil]] | [[Category:Lawful Evil]] | ||
[[Category:Organizations]] | [[Category:Organizations]] | ||
[[Category:Political]] | [[Category:Political]] | ||
[[Category:Power Hungry]] | [[Category:Power Hungry]] | ||
[[Category: | [[Category:Mastermind]] | ||
[[Category:Brainwasher]] | [[Category:Brainwasher]] | ||
[[Category:Anti - Villain]] | [[Category:Anti - Villain]] | ||
[[Category:Modern Villains]] | [[Category:Modern Villains]] | ||
[[Category:Provoker]] | [[Category:Provoker]] | ||
[[Category: | [[Category:Terrorists]] | ||
[[Category: | [[Category:Xenophobes]] | ||
[[Category:Totalitarians]] | |||
[[Category:Islam]] | |||
[[Category:Corrupt Officials]] | |||
[[Category:Fallen Heroes]] | |||
[[Category:Traitor]] | |||
[[Category:Government support]] | |||
[[Category:Jingoists]] | |||
[[Category:Important]] | |||
[[Category:Barbarians]] | |||
[[Category:Successful]] | |||
[[Category:Oppressors]] | |||
[[Category:On & Off Villains]] | |||
[[Category:Liars]] | |||
[[Category:Propagandist]] | |||
[[Category:Mongers]] | |||
[[Category:Pawns]] | |||
[[Category:Political Parties]] | |||
[[Category:Anti-LGBT]] | |||
[[Category:Anti-Semitic]] | |||
[[Category:Anti-Christian]] | |||
[[Category:Anti-Catholic]] | |||
[[Category:Control Freaks]] | |||
[[Category:Torturer]] | |||
[[Category:Faux Affably Evil]] | |||
[[Category:Destroyer of Innocence]] | |||
[[Category:War Criminal]] | |||
[[Category:Mass Murderers]] |