Erdoğan makes indirect reference to Fatih Altaylı: 'The days of the arrogant minority are behind us'

President Erdoğan, in his speech at the Memur-Sen 30th Anniversary Loyalty Meeting, made an indirect reference to the arrest of journalist Fatih Altaylı on charges of "threatening the President."  

Erdoğan said the following in his speech: 

"As you know well, one of the most fundamental problems of our country was discrimination. Our public officials were profiled for practicing their faith. They were insulted by being called 'reactionary,' 'backward,' or 'bigoted.' Those who prayed, fasted, or said 'as-salamu alaykum' were looked down upon and subjected to psychological pressure. There was an ideological caste system in the public sector; they never wanted this to be discussed. They granted no right to life to anyone outside their own clans and factions. They called the nation 'jerry-can heads' or 'belly-scratching men.' They insulted our people with expressions that our decency would not permit us to repeat here. We witnessed all of these and much more together with you. We experienced every kind of oppression to our very bones together with you. Those dark days when an arrogant minority imposed their lifestyle on the silent majority, applied pressure, and wagged their fingers are now behind us."  

WHAT DID FATİH ALTAYLI SAY? 

Fatih Altaylı, in the part of his speech cited as the reason for his arrest to which Erdoğan was referring, had said the following: 

"You may be angry at the Turkish people for various reasons; you may be angry at the Turkish people's way of voting or their voting habits for many reasons. You may even disagree. You may even get very angry and, as some have done, call them 'jerry-can heads' or 'belly-scratching men.' Those are those individuals' own opinions. But you cannot say this: My friend, the Turkish people love the ballot box. And they want the power to be in their own hands. In other words, even if they were to put their own father there, they like to keep the possibility of changing him in their hands. This is not something new, either. Look at the history of this nation... I am not even talking about the recent past, look at the distant past... This is a nation that has strangled its own sultans. It is a nation that has booed its sultan when it did not like him or did not want him. It is not a small number of Ottoman sultans who fell victim to conspiracies, were strangled, or were made to look like they committed suicide... Therefore, when you look at it that way, this public may give up on everything or appear to have given up, but they do not like having their right to choose taken away from them, nor having the right to determine who will decide their own fate taken away from them forever. That is why those who dream of establishing a true dictatorship here can never establish one. Just when they think they have established it, they look and see that they have not." 

News Source: 12punto