Turkey’s government said last Friday’s attempted coup was organized by followers of US -based preacher Fetullah Gulen, who is accused of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through infiltrating Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary, forming what is commonly known as a “parallel state”. Security forces detained Hails Hanci in the Black Sea province of Trabzon.
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He also said that Turkeys request for the extradition of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Erdogan for the deadly unrest, would be handled in accordance with United States law and that “evidence” against Gulen would be taken seriously.
Since the attempted coup July 15, Turkey has cracked down on various agencies and individuals suspected of having ties to the attempted coup, including journalists, judges and professors.
Turkey had already on Saturday detained one of Gulen’s nephews.
Turkey’s presidential guard will be disbanded after almost 300 of its members were detained following the failed coup attempt last week, Prime Minister Binali Yildrim said on 23 July. “There will no longer be a presidential guard, there is no objective, there is no need”.
“With the failure of this armed coup attempt, Turkey has entered a new era”, Erdogan said in a pre-recorded address broadcast on national television Saturday.
It is expected to be ratified by parliament, where Erdogan’s AKP party holds the majority.
Some of Erdogan’s critics claim he is using the failed coup to indiscriminately crackdown on dissent.
Speaking at a meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bankers in China on Saturday, Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said his country will adhere strongly to democratic principles and the rule of law. It said this would facilitate a full investigation into the failed coup, Reuters reported.
The first decree authorises the closure of 1043 private schools, 1229 charities and foundations, 19 trade unions, 15 universities and 35 medical institutions over suspected links to the Gulen movement, the Anadolu agency said. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters were also invited to join as a sign of unity.
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. Video screens on trains show pictures of citizens, or “martyrs”, killed in the violence.
More than 9,000 soldiers have been arrested since the coup. Lawyers say that process could take many years. But Turkey’s membership was always so contentious among the people of the European Union that the leaders of EU governments were in no particular haste to hurry the Turkish government along in changing its laws and its attitudes to make the country EU-ready.
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The flag-waving demonstrators in the city’s Taksim square reflected widespread rejection of the coup attempt in a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation country that has endured several coups in past decades. Not so – paranoid dictators always have lists of enemies of the state (we needn’t go far in time and place to work that out), and given the right setting, they will go wild with that. Mr Celik told a foreign media briefing.
