Is Turkey becoming an intelligence state? Is the country reverting to the era of the "supreme national chief"? These questions are frequently asked nowadays. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who has not hesitated to punish judges, prosecutors and police who he accused of being part of a "parallel state" — now wants to increase his operational powers internally and abroad with a new National Intelligence Organization (MIT) law that would also reinforce his immunity. For the opposition, this is called a "muhaberat," or intelligence, state. 

For Erdogan, courts that issue rulings compatible with the government’s stances are “patriotic,” but those not toeing the government line are “non-national.” Erdogan, who called the Constitutional Court “non-national” because it deemed the Twitter ban a violation of rights, admonished the court's president, Hasim Kilic, when the court annulled the law on the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), saying, “Those who want to be in politics will take off their gowns and do it.” 

The annulled law authorized the minister of justice to appoint and remove HSYK members in a manner infringing upon the freedom of the judiciary. In his latest instance of branding, Erdogan labeled the prosecutor who detained the policemen involved in stopping MIT trucks from going to Syria a "hero," but the judge who ordered their release was called a "traitor" and a "hashashin." 

Erdogan said, "A patriotic prosecutor in Adana launched an investigation. Some suspects were detained. But soon, the people of the parallel structure intervened, and suspects were released. How can it be that suspects are released when there is treason? Some might have submitted to blackmail, and some might have overdosed on hashish.” ​Immediately thereafter, three prosecutors who authorized the truck operation were reassigned.