Newsweek publishes article on Turkey

The American Newsweek journal asked in an article entitled "Democracy in the Dock" what would happen if the Turkish court bans the ruling party, prime minister and president. "At the Constitutional Court in Ankara, four professional judges and seven laymen will rule on whether to close Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and ban 70 of its top members and party founders�including the president and prime minister�on charges of pursuing a hidden Islamist agenda," wrote the journal. The article added, " Critics have described the proceedings as an attempted "judicial coup" mounted by hard-line believers in Ataturk's secular principles. Despite the flimsiness of the charges, the court is unlikely to acquit the party�if only because it would mean a humiliating climb-down for the judges who agreed to deliberate the case." The article further stated that a "decision to close it and ban its top members from politics would provoke a political crisis, leaving the country leaderless and creating a dangerous power vacuum in Turkish politics. The AKP founders, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, are high-profile global figures with many friends in the West."