Why was Ümit Özdağ arrested?

On the morning of January 27, 2024, the sun had not yet risen. I fell ill at Antalya Airport while waiting for the Istanbul flight, which was announced to be delayed by 3 hours due to fog. I was supposed to meet İsmail Türk and Captain Mustafa Can as soon as my plane landed and head to Silivri. Thanks to being a lawyer, I would have been able to visit Ümit Özdağ. My brothers İsmail and Mustafa were going to meet with the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi) members—whose solidarity tents near the prison had been removed and who were keeping a legal vigil for their leader in the freezing cold—to support Ümit Özdağ. Even though we once practiced politics under the same roof and our paths diverged, I am still mentally in the same position as Ümit Özdağ and the Victory Party; after all, we are soldiers of Atatürk, just like them...

What was happening was unbelievable. The MHP leader is calling for freedom for Öcalan, and Özdağ, who has been fighting for years against the migration engineering that is practically invading our country, was now being arrested for opposing an anti-unitary state Constitution that would be packaged with the pardon of terrorists. Of course, we could not leave either Özdağ or the Victory Party members alone. Just like Müsavat Dervişoğlu, the administrators of the main opposition party we always criticize, and many other patriots, we had to stand by our friends and fellow nationalists with even greater support than all of them.

This visit was not meant to be for me for now. It fell to my lot to send my love and greetings through İsmail Türk and Mustafa Can and to pen this article as soon as I got rid of the IV drip on my arm. But my mind is in Silivri; without whining or complaining, I am questioning the situation and these stormy days like every Turkish citizen who is concerned for their country. I am trying to understand what is happening in this dystopia and why Ümit Özdağ was arrested.

First of all, it must be noted that, contrary to popular belief, although what is happening bears similarities to the Balyoz-Ergenekon process, the situation today is more dire. At that time, there was a 'positional warfare' operated by the Fethullahists who had nested in the most important institutions of the state. Today, however, the government's 'total offensive' strategy against the opposition is making itself felt.

Following the internment of Hüseyin Baş and his subsequent restriction with judicial control, the operations against opposition mayors, and the investigation opened against opposition-identified TV actors and the country's most successful casting agency through Ayşe Barım, it has finally reached this point. The Chairman of the Victory Party was taken from a restaurant he went to in Ankara one day after the Antalya rally with disproportionate intervention, on the grounds of the speech he made in Antalya. He was rushed to Istanbul. He was arrested at jet speed. And there was a Minister who said regarding the ordinary course of judicial affairs, "It will be clear in 10 days who is responsible for the hotel disaster in Bolu." While the state's minister stated that even the addressees of the investigation could be determined in 10 days in an incident where 78 people died in a horrific way, despite clear legislative provisions, Özdağ was sent to prison with a speed that would make inquisitorial justice jealous.

I had made my legal assessment regarding this disgraceful detention on 12punto.com. I think almost everyone accepts that the issue here is not legal but political. Because none of the political Islamist, pro-PKK, or MHP-affiliated accounts that celebrated on social media with Özdağ's arrest and were extremely pleased with the situation are arguing that Article 216 was applied technically correctly or that this detention is accurate in accordance with Article 100 of the Turkish Penal Code and subsequent provisions. They are just screaming political lynching. They are cursing at Özdağ and those who think like Özdağ...

Today, it is clear that the goal of the current total offensive, which has placed Özdağ at its most critical crosshair, is to completely change the structure of the Republic by eliminating the first 4 articles of the Constitution and certain other provisions regarding the national state, to the detriment of the Turkish Nation. All the elements that make us the Turkish Nation are being transformed and eliminated. While our country's name, its founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and Turkishness are easily attacked with the most vulgar slanders, Ümit Özdağ is being arrested...

It is understood from the statements of government members and perception manipulators that what is aimed at the price of Öcalan's freedom is a constitutional amendment that will face backlash. It is claimed that with the new Constitution, the way will be paved for autonomy and ethnicism, and the term limit for being elected President will be removed. There are even rumors that this Constitution is intended to be considered a founding text and made a legal milestone, thereby issuing a general amnesty including those serving in the government, effectively formatting all investigations and past crimes.

However, today, the AK Party, MHP, HÜDAPAR, DEM, TİP, and the remnants of parties that have practiced politics in the AK Party in the past hold a total of 409 seats in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. While it is unclear how the 1 Saadet Party deputy and 15 independents will vote, exceeding the number 400 is sufficient for a constitutional amendment without a referendum. Moreover, even if Müsavat Dervişoğlu is truly putting forth a superior performance to prevent his party from disintegrating and there is great reaction in the CHP base against the constitutional amendment intended to be brought with a terrorist pardon, Özgür Özel's stance is not clear. The government can draw some deputies from the IYI Party and the CHP to its own ranks through various methods during the constitutional amendment voting.

But the government knows that not everything is about parliamentary arithmetic. They are wary of the democratic reaction of citizens against the pardon of the head murderer, which the public may perceive as treason, and a Constitution that will liquidate Turkishness.

Especially with the Karaman and Antalya rallies, and what he shouts into every microphone he finds, Ümit Özdağ is an important element of fear as a leader who can mobilize such national consciousness. Although it was shifted from its axis and damaged by various provocations, the Gezi events had made the government of that period extremely uneasy. Today, the economy is much worse. The grumbling of citizens against Middle Eastern migration and the pardon of the head murderer is increasing...

In such a state of affairs, before the constitutional amendment, individuals seen as risky and potential are being interned or arrested and silenced through political area cleaning carried out with police methods. The opening of the Gezi file after 12 years is a huge message to cultural-art circles, students, and white-collar workers...

The DEM delegation has not even opened its mouth with a complete conspiracy after its last visit. Yet, the announcement that the head murderer will make personally on February 15 is being discussed both in the DEM base and by the People's Alliance (Cumhur İttifakı) authorities. It seems that TRT live broadcast vehicles will be mobilized for a psychopathic convict who bears the burden of tens of thousands of our lives. While the convict Öcalan is not allowed to meet with his friends, except for his lawyers, even with administrative permission, he will address Turkey and even the world...

Whatever is going to happen will be staged between February 15 and March 21. It is desired that those who are suppressed by every extra-legal method, left without communication, and feared for mobilizing the citizen's democratic right to protest, especially Özdağ, remain ineffective. Because Özdağ had openly declared that he considers the terrorist pardon and the constitutional amendment scenario against the national state, which are on the agenda, as treason and that they would sabotage the process...

If the murderer Öcalan is released as part of the Nevruz events on March 21, and in return, while the faint support of all anti-national state and anti-unitary structure segments, especially DEM, is fanned, the voices of the opposition and millions who would react to this grave process, even if they are People's Alliance voters, are silenced, they will be able to implement their policies that will not sit well with any real Turkish Nationalist or Atatürkist...

Here, a great task falls to the CHP voter, opposition mayors, Müsavat Dervişoğlu, and all patriots. At any cost, based on the TBMM arithmetic, for which many opposition members including Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu also bear the burden today, the government must not be allowed to pardon the head murderer and thereby change the provisions of our Constitution that are the guarantee of the national state.

The CHP voter should pull Özgür Özel and the party bureaucracy to the line of the 6 arrows, that is, to the national front; every leader, regardless of their party, should shoulder Ümit Özdağ's struggle if they are on the side of Atatürk and the unitary state, and should invite the public to react within the rules of law.

For example, a "No Pardon for Terror" rally of at least 3 million people can be gathered in our capital. The message that the state and the nation will not surrender to the head murderer can be given even by the silent gathering of a crowd never before seen in history in the spiritual presence of the Great Atatürk at Anıtkabir...

We are now obliged to leave aside the self, the ego, and career calculations, and to protect our Turkishness, to form the same broad political position.

Finally, I hope this message of mine reaches Ümit Özdağ with the wish that someone can convey it somehow, or at least that he can read it in free tomorrows:

Every hardship endured for the homeland is sacred. Today, you are fulfilling your historical responsibility by paying the price that Namık Kemal paid in the Magosa dungeons, Mithat Pasha in the Taif exile, Mustafa Kemal in the Bekir Ağa Division, and many other Turkist officers. Just as Galiyev did not give up while defending his nation in the Leford prison against Bolshevik oppression and was proven right before history, I have no doubt that your historical justification will be understood much sooner.

Your party members are doing what is necessary in every matter and representing you successfully, instilling both consciousness and hope in the citizen. Furthermore, besides your party members, many of your fellow citizens who struggle in other parties or without a party, as well as your old friends like us, are by your side until the end. You will be at the forefront while the Turkish Nation plants the flag on the ramparts. May God give you strength...

News Source: 12punto