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REVISTA IEEE 11

205 Elena Labrado Calera An analysis of the plurality of political Islam. The cases… People can vote, that is true, but practically all the other basic conditions required for a democratic system are called into question. So, how far can the term be stretched? Especially when the political order is headed by a charismatic leader with a cult of personality and in whom more and more power is concentrated, where the separation of powers, judicial independence and freedom of expression and academic freedom, among other fundamental rights, are in dispute. IImage 4: Photo: Reccep Tayyip Erdogan, giving a speech during Ramadan in June 2016. Yasin Bulbul/Presidential Palace, via Reuters This was not the first time we saw a regime like this in Turkey or the Middle East, though it was called by other names at the time. What seems clear is that in Turkey today a president and an Islamic government are purging a fellow Islamic faction (Hizmet led by cleric Fethullah Gulen) which is, moreover, a former ally and, indeed, it is not the only group being purged. And this is in contrast to what has been happening for years, not only in Turkey, but also in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria, etc., where secular regimes have persecuted Islamist movements (and it is still happening today in Egypt, for example). It was also in Turkey that in 1996 the army ousted from power the first Islamic government, that of Necmettin Erbakan, which had attempted to incorporate religion into the state. Religion and its relationship with the state are neither at issue, at the centre or the motive behind the current political situation or the actions of Turkey’s government and president. These are taken for granted; the struggle now concerns something else. To paraphrase a statement by the Tunisian leader Ghannouchi, quoted earlier in this paper: religion should be kept separate from political struggles, although this was http://revista.ieee.es

REVISTA IEEE 11
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