Posted on 08/05/2013 10:23:33 AM PDT by markomalley
In a landmark trial, scores of people —including Turkey's former military chief, politicians and journalists — were convicted on Monday of plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government soon after it came to power in 2002.
Retired Gen. Ilker Basbug was the most prominent defendant among some 250 people facing verdicts after a five-year trial that has become a central drama in tensions between the country's secular elite and Erdogan's Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party.
The trial has sparked protests, and on Monday police blocked hundreds of demonstrators from reaching the High Criminal Court in Silivri, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Istanbul, in a show of solidarity with the defendants.
But Monday's verdicts were not expected to set off the kind of violent anti-government demonstrations that were recently sparked by a government plan to build a replica Ottoman-era barracks at a park near Istanbul's central Taksim Square.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I'm sure The Won would love to emulate Erdogan's style in doing so, though.
Erdogan and Baraq get along very well together. Both are in the same business of republic-destruction, and they both know it.
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