[OPINION] From coup to crackdown: How Erdoğan used July 15 to dismantle Turkey’s democracy

Adem Yavuz Arslan*

Nine years after a failed coup on July 15, 2016, Turkey remains a democracy in name only. Once hailed as a promising example of a Muslim-majority country advancing toward a liberal democracy, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become a cautionary tale of how authoritarian regimes can weaponize national trauma to dismantle democratic institutions and suppress dissent.

The attempted coup, whose murky origins and unexplained anomalies continue to raise more questions than answers, was followed almost instantly by an unprecedented purge across every segment of Turkish society. Within months, more than 130,000 civil servants and over 24,000 military officers were dismissed without due process. According to official figures, more than 390,000 people have been detained and over 113,000 arrested since the coup attempt.

Those targeted included: 3,774 judges, 1,314 prosecutors, 34 governors and 154 deputy governors, 35 interior ministry inspectors, 532 district governors, 43,818 police officers (11,043 with rank), 216 generals, 15,182 commissioned officers, 38,888 other Turkish Armed Forces personnel and over 258,000 civilians from all walks of life.

Notably, the government has refused to publish gender or age-disaggregated data, masking the true scale of the humanitarian toll. Yet publicly available images and court testimonies tell a devastating story. According to a recent report by the state-run Anadolu news agency, ironically intended to justify the crackdown, 390,354 people have been detained over their real or perceived links to the Hizmet movement, a faith-based civil society group inspired by the views of the late Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Among them were housewives, children as young as 13 and terminally ill patients. A total of 113,837 have been arrested on what human rights advocates describe as fabricated or flimsy charges.

Democracy as a casualty

President Erdoğan claimed the purges were necessary to “protect democracy.” In reality, they marked its burial. The Turkish Parliament’s official investigation into the coup attempt, expected to clarify key events and identify responsible parties, was mysteriously shelved. Its final report was never published, prompting widespread concern that the findings would challenge the government’s official narrative or reveal state complicity. This lack of transparency remains one of the darkest stains on Turkey’s post-coup legacy.

The rule of law abolished

Turkey’s collapse into authoritarianism has been thoroughly documented by independent watchdogs. Freedom House has ranked the country as “Not Free” in its annual Freedom in the World reports since 2018. One of the most dramatic collapses has occurred within the judiciary: Over 4,000 judges and prosecutors were dismissed and replaced with loyalists, effectively turning the courts into political tools.

The European Commission has repeatedly warned that Turkey’s judiciary no longer meets the criteria of independence required of EU candidate states. The Turkish government routinely ignores binding rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), including those ordering the release of jailed opposition politicians and civil society leaders.

Two emblematic cases are those of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the popular mayor of İstanbul, and Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). Both have faced politically motivated prosecutions aimed at neutralizing Erdoğan’s electoral rivals.

Basic legal safeguards are all but gone. People are placed in pretrial detention for months or years without trial, often based on anonymous tips or tenuous “association” evidence. Examples include the use of a mobile messaging app (ByLock), bank deposits at Gülen-affiliated institutions and the possession of certain books.

Press freedom crushed

Media pluralism, once a hallmark of Turkey’s reformist era, has been decimated. According to Reporters Without Borders Turkey, which was long ranked among the worst jailers of journalists worldwide, ranks 159th out of 180 countries in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index, in between Pakistan and Venezuela. Some 170 media outlets were closed down in the aftermath of the coup attempt.

Journalists critical of the regime have been charged with terrorism for their reporting. Investigations into corruption, minority rights and government abuses have disappeared from the mainstream media, replaced by a landscape dominated by positive reports about pro-government conglomerates. Self-censorship is not an exception in Turkey, it is the rule.

Academic freedom extinguished

The repression has not spared Turkey’s universities, once considered vibrant spaces for critical thought and innovation. At least 5,800 academics were purged from universities after July 15, some for signing a peace petition that criticized military operations in Kurdish regions.

Universities have come under direct state control, with rectors now appointed by presidential decree. Student protests have been met with mass detentions, particularly at prestigious institutions like Boğaziçi University. The result has been a massive brain drain, as thousands of scholars and professionals seek refuge abroad. The damage to Turkey’s intellectual capital will be felt for generations.

A manufactured threat

The Erdoğan government continues to refer to the Hizmet movement as “FETÖ,” its official designation for the group it accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt, using this label to justify its wide-ranging crackdown over the past nine years. However, independent observers, journalists and former Turkish officials have long questioned both the accuracy of the terrorism designation and the movement’s alleged role in the coup, arguing that Hizmet functioned primarily as a civic and faith-based network.

Some suggest the government may have allowed the coup to unfold, or even manipulated elements within the military, to create the pretext for a massive purge and constitutional overhaul.

This skepticism is echoed even in US foreign policy circles. In his memoir, former CIA Director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refers to the events of July 15 as a “purported coup,” expressing doubts about its spontaneity.

In the years since, Erdoğan has expanded the crackdown to target nearly every segment of opposition society: secular, leftist, Kurdish, liberal and even former allies within the conservative movement. The state of emergency, initially imposed for three months, was extended for two years, and many of its extraordinary powers were permanently embedded in Turkish law by the Cabinet, bypassing the parliament.

Action the international community should take

Despite the scale of repression, many Western democracies have remained silent or complicit, more concerned with refugee agreements, arms sales and NATO cohesion than with democracy or human rights. But appeasement has only emboldened Erdoğan further.

It is time for a principled reassessment. Human rights must not be traded for short-term interests. Targeted sanctions, conditional aid and international legal mechanisms must be used to pressure the Turkish government into compliance with international norms. Enforcement of ECtHR judgments, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reporting and UN mechanisms must be strengthened. The Turkish people deserve better: a future in which judges are impartial, journalists are free, universities are independent and leaders are accountable, not worshipped.

*Adem Yavuz Arslan is a journalist with over two decades of experience in political reporting, investigative journalism and international conflict coverage. His work has focused on Turkey’s political landscape, including detailed reporting on the 2016 coup attempt and its aftermath, as well as broader issues related to media freedom and human rights. He has reported from conflict zones such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, and has conducted in-depth research on high-profile cases, including the assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Arslan is the author of four books and has received journalism awards for his investigative work. Currently living in exile in Washington, D.C., he continues his journalism through digital media platforms, including his YouTube channel, Turkish Minute, TR724 and X.