Hundreds of thousands rally behind Turkish leader
Print Edition
SUMMONED by President Tayyip Erdogan, hundreds of thousands of Turks gathered in Istanbul yesterday to denounce a failed coup — a show of strength staged in the face of Western criticism of widespread purges and detentions.
The “Democracy and Martyrs’ Rally” at the Yenikapi parade ground, built into the sea on the southern edge of Istanbul’s peninsula, marks the climax of three weeks of nightly demonstrations by Erdogan’s supporters, many wrapped in the red Turkish flag, in squares around the country.
Banners in the crowd read “You are a gift from god, Erdogan” or “Order us to die and we will do it.” It was also the first time in decades that major opposition parties joined a rally in support of the government.
“We’re here to show that these flags won’t come down, the call to prayer won’t be silenced, and our country won’t be divided,” said Haci Mehmet Haliloglu, 46, a civil servant from the Black Sea town of Ordu.
“This is something way beyond politics, this is either our freedom or death,” he said, a large Turkish flag over his shoulder and a matching baseball cap on his head.
Erdogan has vowed to rid Turkey of the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose followers in the security forces, judiciary and civil service he accuses of orchestrating the attempted power grab and of plotting to overthrow the state.
The cleric was an ally of Erdogan in the early years after his AK Party was elected in 2002. He has denied the charges and denounced the coup, which came at a critical time for a NATO “frontline” state facing Islamist militant attacks from across the border in Syria and an insurgency by Kurdish rebels.
Tens of thousands of people have been suspended, detained or placed under investigation since the plot — including soldiers, police, judges, journalists, medics and civil servants — prompting concern among Western allies that Erdogan is using the events to “tighten his grip on power.”
Erdogan has invited the heads of the secularist and nationalist opposition to address the crowds in what he hopes will show a unified nation in defiance of Western criticism.
“The only way to eliminate coups is to revive the founding values of the Republic. These values that make our unity should be spoken out loud at Yenikapi,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the secularist opposition CHP, in a tweet.
Turkey’s top cleric and chief rabbi also attended. But the pro-Kurdish HDP, the third-largest party in parliament, was not invited over its alleged links to Kurdish militants.
The brutality of July 15, in which more than 230 people were killed as rogue soldiers commandeered fighter jets, helicopters and tanks, shocked a nation that last saw a violent military power grab in 1980. Even Erdogan’s opponents saw his continued leadership as preferable to a successful coup renewing the cycle of military interventions that dogged Turkey in the second half of the 20th century.
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