Çiğdem Albasan wrote articles about women and education for the Koklu Degisim Magazine. On Friday the 5th of March 2010, more than 10 heavily armed anti-terror policemen stormed her house in Ankara in the early morning hours. Her husband Murat Albasan stood up against the arrest of his wife who was pregnant in her third month. Although there was no arrest warrant against him, he too was arrested.

But, what should happen to their 3-year-old son Muaz? They had just returned from Germany. They had not many relatives. 3-year-old Muaz was entrusted to his 75 year-old grandfather. Çiğdem Albasan was kept in confinement for 5 months and was released shortly before giving birth to her child. And her husband was kept in detention 7 months longer. Çiğdem Albasan's name was not entered into neither CPJ nor Freedom House reports. Also neither secular nor conservative media were not interested in them. Because the couple were members of Hizb ut Tahrir.

Hizb ut Tahrir (Party of Liberation) is a political party found by Palestinian Taqiuddin an-Nabahani in 1953. The party's goal coalescing with its name is to bring back the Khilafah "Caliphate", (but the Khilafah "Caliphate" Rashidah, meaning the Khilafah "Caliphate" institution during Islam's early times, where elections within the Shurah (council) were made) and uniting the Muslims under an Islamic State. Nevertheless, the party rejects using violence while working for this aim. Therefore, there is not a single violent action recorded since the party which is organised in almost 40 countries across the world, including Europe and the USA, ever since the start of its work in 1953.

Moreover, even in Syria where almost everyone is armed, the party still maintains its civil line. Hizb ut Tahrir entered Turkey in the 1960's from Jordanian Uthman Muhammed Mahmood Ali Handan who studied and served as a research assistant at METU (Middle East Technical University). Hizb ut Tahrir Wilayah Turkey's representative during 1964-67 was Ercüment Özkan, who later separated from the party due to difference of opinion.

During those days, activities of the organisation of those who wanted the return of the Khilafah "Caliphate", occupies Turkey's agenda for a long time. The regime, which thought to have "eradicated" all pro-caliphates did not hesitate to punish those imported Khilafah "Caliphate" callers.

The courts' reasoning for the up to 5 years prison sentences in 1968 reads as follows: "As the ideology of the community of Hizb ut Tahrir does not give place for nationalist and patriotic bonds, and wants to make dominant the Islamic creed and the Arab language with the Arab culture instead of these concepts, and as in the Islamic state system which is aimed to be established, there exists the idea of removing the Turkish nationalism, the Turkish culture and the sovereignty of the Turkish State and of reducing Turkey to a province of the Islamic state which will realize the Arab ideology..."

Later the penalties are given according to Article 163. And after the abolishment of the Article 163 in 1991, the Anti-Terror Law comes into play. In the year 2000 arrested members of Hizb ut Tahrir receive prison sentences from 3 to 5 years for being leaders and members of an "unarmed terror organisation" and compulsion.
After a change in the Anti-Terror Law by the AKP government in 2003, there occurs an empty space in the act of charging with unarmed terror organisation and the Hizb ut Tahrir defendants start receiving decisions of acquittal from courts.
Also the annotations sent to the courts by the General Directorate of Security Affairs describe Hizb ut Tahrir as a non-violent organisation.

But this was not enough to stop the Special Courts that replaced the State Security Courts. In one pending action against Hizb ut Tahrir in the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court in the year 2005, the court handed down penalties upon the defendants over the following judicial precedent: "Although it was determined that the organisation did not engage in any violent action till today and that it does not prescribe violence in achieving its aim, however as it is aimed to destruct the Republic of Turkey's constitutional regime and to replace it by a state based on Sharia principles, this aim already constitutes violence within itself . Because it is not possible to gain the support and sympathy of its people through democratic ways in order to remove the Republic of Turkey's regime. This definitely requires the resort to violence. For this reason, Hizb ut Tahrir is to be regarded as a terror organisation within the scope of Anti-Terror Law 3713."

In the year 2006, the Article 7 of the Anti-Terror Law upon which members of Hizb ut Tahrir are put on trial has been reformed and it has been given more priority to the condition of violence. However this time, the party continues to be trialled upon the judicial precedent of the Supreme Court. The most bizarre of these court decisions was the one felt by the Penal Department No. 9 of the Supreme Court which was the scandalous judicial precedent to enter world law literature: "Attachment to the attorney general's demurral regarding the organisation as an unarmed one and that its members' actions do not constitute a crime according to Article 220/2 of the Anti-Terror Law No 5237; it has been understood that it is aimed 'after the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate" Rashidah, to launch Jihad against Christian countries in order to annex them into the constituted Khilafah "Caliphate" State', therefore the motion and file are served with the plea of the refusal of appellate request and to APPROVE the decision which is compatible with the procedure and law."

Whimsically the General Directorate of Security attaches this judicial precedent - although it has not such a duty - to the 'non-violent organisation' annotations requested by the courts. In other words it does not leave it to luck. Thus as a result, members of Hizb ut Tahrir were treated the same as armed terror organisations referring to this judicial precedent.

And the long searched weapon was finally found 40 years later in July 2009... Suleyman Uğurlu, the General Coordinator of Köklu Değişim Magazine, a media organ of Hizb ut Tahrir, who was living in Ankara in an other place instead of his own house in order to avoid arrest due to one of the prison sentences from the lawsuits against him.

He had been arrested in Ankara upon leaving the mosque. Normally he should be sent to the jail within a short time, but in spite of that the necessary procedures were not initiated somehow. Although he wanted his lawyer, his request was not met. When asked for his address, he is as sure of himself to give the address of the house where he had hidden instead of his regular address.

The next day he finds out that there had been operations against Hizb ut Tahrir in various provinces. They had waited (with the procedures) in order to include him among this operation. Not only him, but also a Kalashnikov, a pump-rifle, and two lights, discovered in the house at the temporary address he gave to the police. When he was transferred to the prosecution office, his lawyer told him about a strange incident that happened on the day of his detention. Let's read this from an interview with Uğurlu:

"My lawyer told me that on the day of my detention, namely one day before the search in my home, two men with a bag in their hands tried to enter my house, which was witnessed by my neighbours, and those persons identified themselves as police officers and said they would search my house, and when upon this my neighbours said "let's call and inform him", those persons moved away saying "we will come back later again"..."

But in spite of this he had been arrested. During the three years of his imprisonment he continuously requested to search for fingerprints on the weapons, but his request was denied.

The two very lights discovered in his house were identified as military equipment. He requested this to be written to the general staff. The general staff accepts the material, but adds "we cannot take any action as there is no report of lost or stolen items." In spite of request, the attorney general does even not ask the general staff whom this material belongs to.

Later on it has tried to attempt linking Hizb ut Tahrir with Ergenekon by stating that "it has been determined after evaluating the organisation's type of action, that the terror organisation ERGENEKON has tried to indine the terror organisation Hizb ut Tahrir by taking control over it." It was NOT suceessful.

There are still 12 imprisoned members of Hizb ut Tahrir in jail. And almost a total of 900 years of imprisonment for approximately 200 persons from Hizb ut Tahrir have received sentences during various operations are still waiting at the Supreme Court. If these sentences are approved, Turkey will rank right after China and Uzbekistan in the number of arrested Hizb ut Tahrir members.

And even after five years, the fingerprints on the weapons - which only Turkish police were able to find in the house of one Hizb ut Tahrir in the 60 years of this movement - have yet to be determined.

[Source: Türkiye Newspaper]