Harsh Crackdown Leaves Turkey Fearful and Divided
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| Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo by: Anadolu Agency |
The recent failed military coup in Turkey and the government’s subsequent crackdown on possible instigators and on the opposition have created fears and divisions among many of the country’s citizens.
While some utterly trust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and keep coming out onto the streets to show support for him, others find themselves on the receiving end of the still ongoing clampdown, and see that as a different kind of coup.
“My father was suspended two days after the [July 15] failed coup and was arrested last week for no reason. He always respected democracy, the rule of law and human rights,” the daughter of a senior Interior Ministry official told BIRN.
He was among tens of thousands of people who were suspended from work or arrested in recent weeks as a part of the broad “cleansing” operation, which Erdogan and his government started almost immediately after the coup attempt.
“We are convinced that our father is innocent and that our family is a victim of this political cleansing process,” the man’s daughter added, stressing that her family had no links with the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen who is accused of being behind the attempted coup.
Speaking to BIRN in a café in central Ankara, where she insisted on anonymity, she continued: “I do not know how our family will prove our father is innocent; public pressure is tremendously high and the crowd who followed Erdogan’s call is attacking us wildly.
“Our family is against any military coups … if the failed coup had succeeded, we would have been suffering like we are suffering now,” she maintained, concluding that the crackdown appears to be a coup of its own, conducted against innocent people.
“My mother is a teacher in a public school and my older brother is an engineer in a private company,” she recalled.
“My mother was also suspended following my father’s arrest. I do not know how we will survive in these times with only my brother’s salary while I am still a university student.”
She said even their neighbours had stopped talking to them after they were publicly labelled as traitors. “I am without hope,” she concluded.
Massive crackdown continues:
Speaking to the media during the night of the attempted coup, Erdogan claimed it had been instigated by Gulen and his organisation, which he claimed had placed its supporters inside the army and other state institutions.
Erdogan described this organisation as “a parallel state” and dubbed it “the Fethullah Terrorist Organization”, or FETO.
He repeatedly said he would not stop until the last “FETO” member had been detected, while the government declared a three-month state of emergency to make this process easier.
Up until now, more than 70,000 people have been suspended from the army, police, judiciary, bureaucracy, the education system, NGOs and the media. The government has also revoked the teaching licences of 30,000 teachers in the private sector.
The number of people who worked in the now closed NGOs, media outlets and companies is unclear but is estimated to be in the tens of thousands.
Interior Minister Efkan Ala announced on July 29 that 9,677 people, including army generals and officers, judges, police, teachers, journalists and NGO workers had been arrested in addition to 18,044 people who were already taken into custody on or immediately after the coup attempt.
“The government has also cancelled 49,211 passports to stop the FETO terrorists from escaping abroad,” he added.
Can Yılmaz was an accountant in one of the companies that the government has closed because of its alleged links to “Gulenists”.
“My company was closed by the government under the state of emergency,” he told BIRN. “I am not aware that company owners have any link with the FETO.”
He said he was now worried about how he and his family would survive without his job, which provided for the whole family.
“No one will hire me any time soon if I am labelled a ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor,’” he said.
“This treason [the failed coup] was doomed to fail, but there is no difference between a coup and the things which I have been experiencing since my company was closed,” he added.
The mother of an arrested army lieutenant told BIRN that she had no idea why her son was arrested since they were on holiday at the time of the coup.
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| Massive crackdown continues. Photo by: Anadolu Agency |
“My son was called up by his army unit the day after the failed coup, and he went there freely because he had committed no crime. He was later arrested under the accusation of being part of the coup,” she recalled.
The woman said her family found a lawyer who was ready to take up her son’s case, but the crowd that has remained on the streets since July 15, as requested by Erdogan, stoned the lawyer’s office, inflicting serious damage. The crowd accused the lawyer of being a traitor for taking up such cases, so he eventually gave up.
She claimed that another lawyer in the crowd, who was an Erdogan supporter, had egged the people on.
“I do not know what we will do now on since no lawyer wants do defend my son,” she said and concluded: “I believe that Erdogan is using my son and other soldiers to consolidate his power.”
Like hundreds of other people whose relatives or friends were arrested following the failed coup, she sometimes goes to Ankara’s Sincan prison, where most of the coup plotters are held and where the prisoners can be visited every two weeks or once a month.
The wife of a general who came to visit her husband on July 26 briefly addressed scores of those who were waiting to be allowed to visit their loved ones. She said as a wife of a Pasha [general] she felt obliged to support and console them.
“My husband, your honourable Pasha, stopped the rebels’ tanks and other armoured army vehicles [of the coup plotters] with his loyalist soldiers in his province,” she told the people. “During a night full of terror, he was not on the side of the rebels.
“However, despite his efforts, he was arrested the following morning. He was tortured and has several broken bones. Justice will come soon or later,” she added.
She claimed that the government had drawn up a list of possible opponents even before the coup, and was now using the state of emergency following the failed coup as an excuse to remove all opposition names from the army and state institutions.
“You may not believe the justice of this world but trust in God’s justice; our relatives are innocent. There is a greater game being played, which we still do not understand yet,” she concluded.
The other side of the coin:
On the other side of the deep rift that has split the Turkish public during and immediately since the failed coup, millions of people undeniably trust and support Erdogan, his government and his recent actions.
Some lost relatives or friends during the night of the attempted coup while others claim that they suffered because of Gulen and his supporters even before July 15.
Tens of thousands people in Ankara, Istanbul, Bursa, Izmir and other bigger and smaller cities in Turkey have been occupying city streets and squares since the night of the coup. The groups get smaller during the day but grow overnight.
Municipalities run by the ruling AKP party have made public transport free of charge, or reduce the price during the “democracy watch”. They also provide free food, water and other beverages to the crowd.
Pro-Erdogan rallies have also taken place abroad, in what experts see as a deliberate and well-organized initiative to reinforce Erdogan’s position both locally and internationally.
As many as 50,000 people gathered on Sunday in Cologne, a city with one of the highest percentages of Turks in Germany. The crowd flew Turkish, German, Bosnian and Palestinian flags alongside Erdogan’s portrait.
Erdogan was planning to address the crowd himself but the German High Court blocked this, worsening the already tense relations between Turkey and EU governments.
Similar events have taken place in other European cities, including London, Paris and Vienna as well as in towns and cities in the Balkans with large Muslim populations, such as Sarajevo in Bosnia, Skopje and Gostivar in Macedonia and Presevo in Serbia.
Ali Orak, a member of the Istanbul branch of the AKP party and owner of a small coffee shop in Istanbul, told BIRN that the perpetrators of the attempted coup must be punished.
He said that on the night of the coup, he and his wife answered Erdogan’s calls, repeated from mosque minarets, and took to the streets to fight the rebels. “My wife and I defended our democracy throughout the night,” he recalled.
“We lost several friends in front of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s central building. Rebel helicopters fired at us but we defended our democracy to the death as our President Erdogan asked us to do,” he said.
“The FETO obviously did this,” he added. “I believe the Gulenists are being used by all the foreign powers who do not want a strong Turkey. That night, they first aimed to arrest or murder Erdogan but they failed and then Erdogan mobilized the Turkish people. We have won, Turkish democracy has won.”
According to Orak, Erdogan made his initial alliance with Gulen because he was alone and trusted Gulen and his supporters but the latter used this alliance to place their “spies” in senior positions within the army and the state.
“Gulen fooled us and Turkey. The Gulenists showed their real face [on July 15] and they are certainly not in favour of this country,” Orak said and concluded: “We will be on the streets for the democracy watch until Erdogan says otherwise. FETO and its supporters as well as the people who do not accept that FETO did this treachery are traitors.”
Cagatay Ozer, a former military academy student, became a public example of Turkish people who have suffered as a result of Gulen supporters establishing their foothold in the military, speaking on TRT news channel on June 31.
He claimed that the Gulenists had ensured that he was was dismissed from the military academy for no reason. “All the exam questions were given to FETO students [in advance] and those students were sponsored in the chain of promotion,” he said.
“Our youth was stolen by the FETO. I was fired from the academy for alleged indiscipline. Thousands of students were in the same position as me,” he added.
He claimed that FETO’s real aim came to light with the failed coup and he hopes to be able to return to the army.
“The government must punish all the FETO terrorists and we want to help them detect FETO members,” he said.
“Our dream of being a Turkish army officer and Pasha was taken from us … Now, it is the time to destroy the FETO members’ dreams,” he concluded.
