Turkish satirical magazine LeMan, often compared to France’s Charlie Hebdo, said the government had prevented it – via a court order – from publishing its edition following the coup, adding it was also facing other threats.
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Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said in an interview with Turkey’s Kanal 7 television station today that anyone who suggests the coup attempt was staged likely had a role in the insurrection, which was defeated by loyalist forces and pro-government protesters.
A female fighter pilot detained over the plot, Kerime Kumas, has confessed to landing a helicopter with rebel soldiers on board on the pitch of Besiktas football stadium during the coup night.
But in stark contrast to the broadly celebratory mood in Istanbul, human rights group Amnesty International in London claimed it had “credible evidence” of the beating and torture of post-coup detainees.
Last week, Turkey issued arrest warrants for 300 members of the Presidential Guard Regiment. But the coup has united both sides in a blaze of nationalist fervour. Even so, these are tense times in Turkey, which has declared a three-month state of emergency and detained more than 13,000 people in the military, judiciary and other institutions.
Erdogan’s government has also sacked thousands of teachers, professors and civil servants and closed schools and universities.
Gulen, 75, who lives in a compound in rural Pennsylvania and whose foundation runs a global network of schools, charities and media interests, has strongly denied the accusations.
President Erdogan has said the aim of the crackdown is to “cleanse all state institutions” of those suspected of involvement with the coup or with what he calls “the parallel state” – a reference to the movement founded by Mr Erdogan’s former ally and current nemesis Fethullah Gülen.
The leader of Turkey’s main parliamentary opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has harshly condemned the July 15 coup during a major rally on Sunday in Istanbul.
However, in a sign that the harmony is not complete, the head of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas has not been invited.
Taksim Square, like much of Istanbul and other cities, is awash with Turkish flags and CHP supporters were also carrying pictures of their hero Kemal Ataturk, the soldier who founded the secular republic on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.
“The state of emergency is a good thing and it’s good that many people have been arrested and that the length of detentions has been extended”, said demonstrator Harun Kalyancu, 34, a furniture designer and supporter of the ruling party.
Supporters of Erdogan’s AKP, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, have generally tended to use religious symbols and rhetoric.
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There has been some internet speculation that Erdogan engineered the unrest in order to rally support and thereby increase his power, a conspiracy theory rejected by the government and most commentators on Turkey’s recent turbulence.
