Yalçınkaya started his oral argument in the ongoing case against the AK Party at the top court at 10 a.m. During his one-and-a-half-hour-long defense, Yalçınkaya told the judges that the governing AK Party should be shut down. "The AK Party wishes to bring Shariah rule to the country, and Turkey faces a clear and imminent threat in this sense.

The annulment of constitutional amendments which would pave the way for women wearing headscarves to attend university courses and the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeals Penal General Committee clearing Fethullah Gülen of all allegations against him by upholding an earlier decision to acquit by the Ankara 11th Criminal Court do not eliminate this threat,” Yalçınkaya said.

He filed a closure case against the AK Party in March on grounds that it had become a focal point of anti-secular activities and requested a ban on 70 of its high-ranking officials from belonging to a political party for five years, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül, a former AK Party member.

Yalçınkaya also included remarks made by Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, a senior AK Party official, to The New York Times on the revolutions of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Fırat told the Times in late June that Atatürk’s revolutions had traumatized Turkish society. “Turkish society has been traumatized. Overnight they were told to change their dress, their language. Their religious ways were dismantled,” he had said.

The AK Party will present its verbal defense on Thursday. After this process is complete, the Constitutional Court’s rapporteur will compile the evidence and statements and prepare his report on the content of the case. After the report is finished, it will be submitted to the 11 members of the high court, and Constitutional Court President Haşim Kılıç will determine a court date for the case. According to the Constitution, in order for the top court to ban the AK Party, it needs the approval of a qualified majority, namely seven out of its 11 members. The Constitutional Court can either close the party or deprive it partially or completely of Treasury funds.

The case has deepened political and economic uncertainty. İstanbul’s main share index fell more than 4 percent, bond yields rose and the lira weakened due to global markets and domestic political concerns. The secularist establishment, including army generals and judges, suspects the AK Party of harboring a hidden Islamist agenda. The party, which embraces nationalists, market liberals and center-right politicians as well as religious conservatives, denies such accusations. The EU has criticized the case, and a move against a democratically elected party could hurt Turkey’s accession process. If the AK Party is closed and Prime Minister Erdoğan removed from power, analysts expect an early parliamentary election to follow. Turkish courts have banned more than 20 political parties for alleged Islamist or separatist activities, and a predecessor to the AK Party was banned in 2001.

TODAY’S ZAMAN