The Legal Ramifications of the Case for Closure of the AK Party in View of the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights - Prohibition of Political Parties in Turkey - The Case of the AKP

Indgående analyse 05-09-2008

Introduction The Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party; officially abbreviated to ‘Akparti’ or AKP) was founded in 2001 by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, former Lord Mayor of Istanbul, and a group of politicians, including some from the outlawed Refah Partisi (Welfare Party) as well as a number of supporters of other parties who did not stand out as having a particularly religious mindset. Erdoğan thus reinforced his profile as a religiously oriented but pragmatic politician open to the values of modern democracy. He had already made a name for himself in the Refah Partisi as a moderate politician with little in common with the ideological principles of Necmettin Erbakan. [...]