Yes, the President targeted Prof Fincanci and the TTB at his party's group meeting. But he has clearly declared that all professional organisations will be forced to change their founding laws in order for them to be allowed to carry out operations.
İhsan Çaralan
On Wednesday, President Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at his party’s - the Justice and Development Party (AKP) - meeting in which he focused his attention on current affairs. Erdoğan expressed his harshest criticisms for professional organisations, with the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) being on the frontlines.
Claiming that “the TTB and similar professional organisations are clearly in violation of the Constitution”, Erdoğan stated that they will carry out the “multi-bar system” operations displayed in bar associations [there used to be a single bar association representing all professionals in the judiciary system but with new regulations passed recently the path to multiple bodies has opened], on the TTB, Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) and other such professional organisations.
The President also provided a date. After the budget is approved, amendments to the founding laws of the TTB and other professional organisations will be considered, and based on this, the necessary adjustments will follow.
Breaking down what Erdoğan said, it is understood that the“multi-association” system will be used in all trade associations, and other details will be made taking into account the unique characteristics of the associations. Of course it must be considered here that the“necessity measurement” of the changes is to make the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) more powerful by increasing their influence in the associations and turning them into their “backyards”. And when they cannot do this, they do their best to dismember, neutralise and discredit them in society!
In his speech, the President did not only target the TTB as an organisation. He declared Prof. Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı a “terrorist”.
“Another issue that needs to be resolved is the unsustainable structure of professional organisations,” President Erdoğan said. “They bring someone from a terrorist organisation to be the chair of the TTB. This is called the seizure of NGOs by terrorist organisations ... TTB and some professional organisations like these are clearly in violation of the Constitution. We will enforce the similar work of multi-bar systems... ”
The President not only accused professional organisations of being anti-democratic, but also claimed that the administrators of the TTB and such groups were terrorists. As evidence of his claim, Erdoğan pointed to the TTB’s Central Council chair Prof Fincancı, who received 67 percent of votes from the organisation’s over 100 thousand physicians in the recent elections.
Prof Fincancı has been writing articles in our newspaper that inform and enlighten us for many years. Our readers know her both from her articles and her work which contains extraordinary energy, despite all the pressures and threats that are prevalent in the field of human rights. Everyone whose rights have been violated (Kurds, asylum seekers, women victims of violence, war victims, those with other beliefs and other nationalities) are well acquainted with her from her work at the Human Rights Foundation, which she has been chairing for years.
While Prof Fincanci has always done justice to her role as a doctor specialized in forensic medicine, with which she made her academic career, she is also an intellectual, a lover of humanity and has succeeded in putting her profession at the service of the human rights campaign. Moreover, Fincanci is accepted as an authority in her field not only in our country but also by international human rights circles - from the United Nations, to Amnesty International and the ECHR. Her ideas are valued in the solution of issues related to human rights. She is a woman of struggle whose existence and work is the honor of our country and our peoples.
But these accomplishments are flipped and used as a basis for Erdoğan and the propagandists of his one-man rule to claim that “See, we did say she is a terrorist. In fact, she is an international terrorist.”
This is because for them, such activities are proof of being terrorists. We do not write here to convince them. On the contrary, we write in order to point out that every human rights campaigner, everybody who struggles for rights and does not pay allegiance to his one-man rule are labelled as a “terrorist”, “separatist” or “collaborators of foreigners” under 18-years of the AKP rule - just as it was seen in the September 12, 1980 military junta.
In response to Erdoğan, the TTB said in a statement: “Prof. Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı will continue to serve as the chair of the Central Council of the Turkish Medical Association, which will observe the current attitudes and values of physicians ... The main target [in Erdoğan’s claims] is the physicians who do not shy away from telling the truth in the interest of public health and these efforts are to erode and eliminate their organisation.” The statement declared that both Şebnem and the TTB would continue to defend the people's right to health without taking a step back in the face of threats and accusations.
Yes, the President targeted Prof Fincanci and the TTB at his party's group meeting. But Erdoğan has clearly declared that all professional organisations will be forced to change their founding laws in order for them to be allowed to carry out operations.
That is why the problem is not only the attack against the TTB, but also against all professional organisations and the workers of all professions such as the millions of physicians, engineers, pharmacists, accountants and more who are members of these organisations. The President clearly declared that professional organisations will become the AKP and MHP’s “backyards” and that the preparations for these changes have been completed. The date has also been given for this as the beginning of the new year.
Therefore, Erdoğan's statement shows that the TTB and other professional organisations should not waste any time in entering a united line of struggle. Workers of all professions and all progressive democratic forces, and all progressive workers and trade unions should urgently enter into a common struggle with professional organisations.
Bülent Falakaoğlu
Hakkı Özdal
