Ten years after the coup attempt: Turkey between commemoration and reckoning
Turkey is marking the tenth anniversary of the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016. Pro-government media celebrate the night as a heroic defense of democracy, while critical observers see in it the start of intensified repression.
On the historical core both sides agree: on the night of July 15, 2016, citizens stood up to tanks and fighter jets and prevented the overthrow of President Erdogan. After that, however, the narratives sharply diverge. The pro-government Daily Sabah devotes a whole series to the anniversary: it honors the day as a "turning point" in Turkish foreign and domestic policy, documents new confessions about the allegedly highly organized networks of the Gulen movement (FETO), classified as a terrorist group, and portrays victims and heroes of that night. The left-liberal Le Monde draws the bitter counter-image: the initial national unity, it says, was followed by an era of intensified repression and curtailed freedoms, mass dismissals, arrests and a restructuring of the state. It is a fact that the failed coup shaped Turkey deeply; what remains contested is whether as the birth of a resilient democracy or as a pretext for an authoritarian overhaul.