President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeated his call for protests in public squares against plotters of the July 15 failed military coup attempt that killed more than 200 people.
Speaking at the Parliament on Friday, Erdoğan told anti-coup protesters not to leave public squares empty until further notice, referring to the gatherings held every night since the coup attempt.
Erdoğan also condemned western countries’ attitude against the coup, saying, “If the West really says it believes in democracy, it should not condemn [the coup attempt] with a hesitant attitude. We will send videos of this incident [the coup attempt] via our Foreign Affairs Ministry to the whole world. I wish that they won’t call a president, who came to power with people’s votes, a ‘dictator’ as easily as they did before [after seeing the videos].”
Referring to the massive purges, detentions and arrests that followed the failed coup attempt, Erdoğan said they serve justice.
“Some ask me whether it is the right thing to arrest so many people. Now the justice is being served. Why? Because justice delayed is justice denied. We have always been waiting for it,” Erdoğan added.
A group of rebel soldiers, acting out of chain of command, attempted a military coup at around 10 p.m. last Friday, with tanks rolling onto the streets of Ankara and İstanbul and soldiers blocking the Bosphorus Bridge and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge. The military’s claim of a takeover was announced by the state broadcaster TRT after rebel soldiers raided its building. The anchorwoman said the military imposed martial law and declared a curfew until further notice.
Hundreds of people, including civilians, were killed in clashes between police and rebel soldiers overnight. Military helicopters struck the Parliament, the presidential palace and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) headquarters.
The Turkish government managed to suppress the coup attempt and launched a large-scale crackdown across the country on media, public servants, judges, prosecutors and teachers, along with rebels within the army.
