Several developments in Turkey over the weekend and stretching into early this week have observers fearing that the country’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party is tightening its grip on the country’s armed forces.

In the legal arena, the first convictions came down in a years-old campaign against former top military officials. The AKP has been blasted by human rights groups for using the so-called Ergenekon trials as a mechanism for rounding up and imprisoning hundreds of political dissidents. Freedom House has accused the Islamist party of “using problematic articles in the penal code to attack critics and dissidents” and of staging “a series of show trials, during which innocent and guilty alike languish in jail.” On Monday former military Chief of Staff Ilker Basbug was sentenced to life in prison for his alleged role in a covert, conspiratorial, ultranationalist group that sought the government’s overthrow.

Ankara this weekend also appointed new top-ranking military officials perceived to be favored by the regime. Turkey’s Supreme Military Council, led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had blocked the promotion of Gendarmerie Commander Gen. Bekir Kalyoncu and forced him into retirement. The result was straightforward:

Local media reported that Erdogan blocked the promotion because Kalyoncu’s name often cropped up in the trial of alleged coup plotters. Kalyoncu’s exit is considered the latest blow to Turkey’s beleaguered officer corps who are the target of a series of probes launched in recent years into past military interventions and coup plots…

Since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan’s government has reined in the powerful military, once the self-appointed guardians of the secular state who carried out four coups over half a century. In September, more than 300 hundred active and retired army officers, including three former generals, received prison sentences of up to 20 years over a 2003 military exercise alleged to have been an undercover coup plot.

[Photo: euronewses / YouTube]