- Cemil Çiçek
Cemil Çiçek (b 1946
Yozgat ) is Deputy Prime Minister ofTurkey and AKP Member of Parliament fromAnkara . He was formerlyMinister of Justice and government spokesman.He graduated from the Law Faculty of
Istanbul University and joined the centre-right ANAP in 1983. He became an ANAP MP for Yozgat, and in the late 1980s Minister of State responsible for "the family". In this role he was known for his conservative views on matters of sex and marriage. He later became Minister for energy and natural resources but was expelled from ANAP in 1997, upon which he joined the Islamic leaning Fazilet Party which later evolved into the AKP.He was Minister of Justice in the first AKP government (from 2003 to 2007) when as a former ANAP MP he was thought to be one of the leading figures of the AKP most acceptable to the Turkish military. During his ministry he had to deal with situations including:
* the2003 Istanbul bombings
* the release from prison of former MPLeyla Zana ,
* a conference to discuss theArmenian Genocide issue atBilgi University , which was banned following pressure from Çiçek and his department.
* the prosecutions of a number of police officers accused of torturing prisoners.
* an attempted suicide bombing of his ministry.His legislation included stricter controls of prisons (in 2006).
Quotes
As Minister of Justice
* The mentality of the general public is the prime obstacle to rule of law (in Turkey). "Our public does not want justice, they just want their own affairs sorted out. They want to see corruption investigated but they are not ashamed to manage their own affairs corruptly. The public actually doesn't care about corruption. They say "let someone tackle it while we watch and see who wins" as if it were a football match." He then went to blame the professional bodies for not exposing corruption among their members. [ [http://www.radikal.com.tr/veriler/2003/09/01/haber_87232.php Newspaper "Radikal"] tr icon]* "The Islamic world will get nowhere by blaming all its problems on the outside world and making itself out to be a white spoon just pulled out of the milk" [ [http://arsiv.zaman.com.tr/2003/11/28/haberler/h10.htm Newspaper "Zaman", November 28, 2003] tr icon]
* (Upon the release from prison of
Leyla Zana ..)"The Turkish courts have played their part. Now the EU has no excuse" (not to begin entry negotiations with Turkey)* (on the
Armenian Genocide issue in 2005) "let the historians debate it" (after his office had acted to halt the conference on the issue.References
###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
before=Abdullah Gül
title=Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
years=Agu 28, 2007–present
after=incumbent
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
