The decision by the European Court of Human Rights decision to uphold Turkey’s 1998 ban on the country’s Islamist Welfare Party is incomprehensible. At a stroke the court has driven a juggernaut through the principles that underpin European political values.
Europe believes firmly in free speech and the right of assembly and of association (the right to form organizations, including political parties). The ban on the Refah (Welfare) Party and the removal from office as prime minister of its leader Necmettin Erbakan the previous year were direct attacks on those beliefs. Indeed at the time, both actions were strongly criticized elsewhere in Europe and held up as proof of Turkey’s human rights failings. Yet they are now supported by the very court that is supposed to uphold free speech and the right of association.
There is something seriously amiss here. It can be taken as a surefire certainty that the court would forbid any attempt elsewhere in Europe to ban a party, even inherently anti-democratic ones such as communists or fascists. Even parties with terrorist links, like the Basque country’s Euskal Herritarrok (the political wing of ETA) or Ireland’s Sinn Fein or some of the Northern Irish loyalist parties, know that were they to be banned they could go to the European Court of Human Rights and be sure of a reprieve. But when it comes to an Islamic party, the same thinking clearly does not apply. Neither the Welfare Party nor its lineal successors, the Virtue Party which was banned less than six weeks ago and the reincarnation, the Felicity Party, can be accused of being involved with violence. Yet they are condemned.
The court’s decision can only be interpreted as institutionalized European Islamophobia. It is, seemingly, perfectly fine to have Christian Democrat parties in Europe, that want Christian principles implemented through politics; but not Muslim democrat ones. Parties that want that are demonized as dangerous; democratic society has to be protected from them. Such a view is outrageous and offensive. If Turks want to vote for an Islamist party — and in the 1995 elections it emerged as the biggest party in Parliament — that is their business.
Allegations of institutionalized European Islamophobia have often been voiced in the past. It is said that the real reason why Turkey is constantly spurned in its attempts to join the EU is because Turks are Muslims.
There are sound reasons why Turkey is at present refused EU membership: its human rights record and the power exerted by the Turkish Army are currently incompatible with European political traditions. Ironically, when, in 1997, the army forced the removal of Erbakan from the premiership and the following year the ban on Welfare Party, it prompted fierce international criticism that Turkey was acting undemocratically and was used to show that Turkey was not yet ready for membership of the EU. The European Court of Human Rights has now turned that thinking on its head. Logically, it ought to mean that Turkey is perhaps after all, ready for membership.
Reality, though, lies elsewhere. It is that those who run Europe’s institutions still cannot tolerate Islam.
