ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Sultanahmet courthouse, in the heart of medieval Istanbul, is a drab 1960s building, with the pedestrian look of a place where unexceptional bureaucratic business is conducted. The courtroom, with its peeling gray walls, looks like a dusty schoolroom. But the courthouse's unremarkable appearance belies the importance of the decisions being weighed there. It was there, in May, that members of a leading Islamist creationist organization, the Science Research Foundation (SRF), were sentenced to three years in prison on charges of engaging in illegal threats and creating a criminal organization. The protracted trial, bookended by the 1998 banning of one Islamist party, the Welfare Party, and an imminent decision on the possible banning of another, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), has caused a considerable stir. While the six indicted SRF members await the appeal process in the Turkish courts, they are looking to the European Court of Human Rights to carry on their fight. Resurrected in April after having lain dormant for over two years, the case is now being portrayed in some quarters as part of a witch hunt against prominent Islamic organizations by the country's secular elite. "This case should be finished. This is a case where the evidence was collected unlawfully and should not be used," argued Fabio Galiani, an international criminal defense lawyer, who stood outside the courtroom awaiting a verdict on the trial he had been following for eight years. "Furthermore, there was already a decision which should close the case," he added, referring to allegations about the use of torture to gather evidence and the application of a law that was not in force when the crimes were allegedly committed.
Courts Become a Battleground in Fight Over Identity of the Turkish State
