Why pro-Erdo?an media rediscovered Atatürk

On Monday, one of Turkey?s many pro-Erdo?an newspapers, Yeni ?afak, published a series of documents allegedly proving that Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, died because of poisoning. The plot to kill him was conspired in ?freemasonry lodges? and the culprits included ?smet ?nönü, Atatürk?s ?second man,? who replaced him as president when he died in 1938.

Yeni ?afak was quite confident about the truth of its exposé, which covered its whole front page. For others, however, this was a laughing matter. The paper is known for its extravagant conspiracy theories, discovering a Jewish, British or American hidden hand in virtually everything that it deems troublesome. During the Gezi Park protests of 2013, it published a sensational story on how the protestors in Turkish streets were in fact all remote-controlled by a secretive ?Zello Organization,? which was based in the dark corners of America. ?Zello,? however, turned out to be nothing but an iPhone app that serves like a walkie-talkie, which some protestors had merely downloaded from a dark corner in America, also known as the ?App Store.?

The ?documents? that Yeni ?afak ran about the death of Atatürk were also a laughing matter. As daily Cumhuriyet pointed out, the font used in the documents, which are supposedly from the 1930s, were actually from Windows 7. In other words, the manufacturers of the documents were quite reckless. Similar inanities were also found in other ?secret documents? that Yeni ?afak has published in recent days, such as a clearly photo-edited paper apparently presenting Fethullah Gülen, the ruling Justice and Development Party?s (AKP) nemesis, as a ?top-ranked freemason.?

We are used to fake documents and shameless slander campaigns in Turkey, but the real...