Events
The operation was planned by generals İsmail Hakkı Karadayı, Çevik Bir, Teoman Koman, Çetin Doğan, Necdet Timur, and Erol Özkasnak.
On 17 January 1997, during a visit to the Turkish General Staff, Turkish president Süleyman Demirel requested a briefing on what had been bothering the military. İsmail Hakkı Karadayı, Chief of the General Staff, enumerated 55 items, labelled "reactionary". Demirel said half of them were based on hearsay. He encouraged Karadayı to communicate with the government, and to soften the memorandum's wording.
On 31 January 1997, anti-Israel protests took place in "Al-Quds night" that was arranged by the Sincan municipality in Ankara. The building in which the "Al-Quds night" took place was plastered with posters of Hamas and Hezbollah. As part of the process, the tanks moved on the streets of Sincan on 4 February. The movement was later described as a balance adjustment to the democracy by Çevik Bir.
At the National Security Council (MGK) meeting on 28 February 1997, the generals submitted their views on issues regarding secularism and political Islam on Turkey to the government. The MGK made several decisions during this meeting and the Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan from the Welfare Party was forced to sign the decisions. The decisions were intended to protect the secularist ideology in Turkey. Some of the decisions that Erbakan was forced to sign are:
- Forcing people to donate skins of sacrificed animals to the Turkish Aviation Board (THK)
- Strict headscarf ban in universities
- Eight year primary school education
- Shutting down Koran schools
- Abolition of Tarikats (sufi orders)
- Control of media groups which object to the decisions of Yüksek Askerî Şûra (Supreme Military Council) to fire religious soldiers on claims of "irtica" ("reaction"/"reactionaryism")
Read more about this topic: 1997 Military Memorandum (Turkey)
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