Pro-government figure Ahmet Maranki has threatened people on May 23 with an armed uprising if the ruling AKP party and its presidential candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lose the elections on June 24.
Maranki revealed in an interview with Islamist Akit TV that they had weapons stash buried in Istanbul’s Belgrade forest.
"However, if it [the polls] gives results that we have not expected, we have no place to go. Therefore, my hopes are beyond June 25. If it fails, then we will take them, which we trained with and then buried under the tree in the Belgrade forest. We will take to the streets and we will say 'Bismillahirrahmanirrahim [in the name of Allah],' Maranki said, referring to "the weapons they buried".
"Not that much," as the speaker responded Maranki, "But these men are attacking you with shellfire. They are attacking with rifles. They are shooting you with tanks. This nation is ready when it is necessary,” Maranki said, comparing upcoming elections with the clashes of the failed coup attempt in July 2016.
However, the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen’s network (FETÖ, Fethullahist Terror Organization) was one of the masterminds of the coup attempt. Gülen network and ruling AKP party had enjoyed a longstanding alliance until recent years prior to the aborted coup.
As Maranki has attracted widespread and harsh criticism on social media for his threatening remarks, many people have described the threat as a call for civil war, and thus called on prosecutors to take action against him for inciting the people to hatred and hostility in the run up to the elections.
For some time there has been hushed speculation that Erdoğan and his AKP party might resort to drastic measures if they scent defeat.
Meanwhile, lawmaker Tur Yıldız Biçer from the parliamentary main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has announced that they would file a criminal complaint against Maraki on the pretext of provoking the people to hatred and hostility and attempting to abolish the constitutional order through force and violence.
On late May 24, a prosecution office in İstanbul has announced to launch an investigation against Prof Maranki for the crime of provoking people to hatred and hostility via media.
AKİT TV THREATENED PEOPLE SEVERAL TIMES
Earlier in February 2018, Ahmet Keser, an anchor from pro-government Akit TV, described the people in predominantly secular neighbourhoods in İstanbul and the Turkish parliament as "traitors" and threatened them with killing. The anchor had to resign from his post following social uproar and legal procedures.
Mehmet Arslan, another Akit TV presenter, targeted women wearing low-neck clothes, saying that such women had to be punished since they were harassers and seducing men.
