Turkey’s minorities say coup trial decision ‘positive, but insufficient’

PanARMENIAN.Net - Minority groups in Turkey welcomed the sentences handed down to suspects in the Sledgehammer coup trial, which concluded last week, interpreting the Istanbul court's decisions as likely to reduce the prospects of a military coup in the country, which will in turn help save the lives of minorities victimized greatly by junta administrations, Today's Zaman reports.

In a landmark move, the Istanbul 10th High Criminal Court, which heard the Sledgehammer case, gave 20-year prison sentences to three retired generals and 16-year sentences to 214 other suspects in the case over charges of coup plotting.

Taraf columnist, ethnic Armenian Markar Esayan defines the decision to convict the Sledgehammer coup plot as “the beginning of a new era,” although he does not believe that it symbolizes the end of military coups in Turkey without further reforms.

Esayan, Mihail Vasiliadis from the Istanbul-based Greek Apoyevmatini newspaper, Armenian author Hayko Bağdat and human rights lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz all agree that the Sledgehammer case is critical in the problematic history of civil-military relations in Turkey while pointing out the existing problems of Turkish democracy as far as minorities are concerned.

Bağdat said, “I find the Sledgehammer decision very positive, but insufficient,” while talking about the unresolved parts of the Hrant Dink murder.