Spotlight: Turkey planning massive commemorations for coup anniversary

Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-06 01:33:52|Editor: yan
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By Burak Akinci

ANKARA, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish government is planning a series of activities to mark the anniversary of the last year's coup attempt on July 15 including nationwide rallies dubbed "Democracy Watch."

Festivities planned between July 11 and 16 will include seminars and activities. "Democracy Watch", rallies that took place for nearly a month after the military coup attempt last summer across the nation to protest the coup plotters and reaffirm determination to protect democracy, will take place throughout the week.

"On the anniversary, we will hold a 'Democracy Watch' as a symbolic commemoration," announced ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Mahir Unal.

"We will hold events in (all) 81 provinces around Turkey. The people who went out in the streets on the night of the coup were defending democracy and the will of the people," said Unal.

One of the venues of the commemorations will be the Parliament in Ankara, bombarded by warplanes during the night of the coup.

AKP is also planning to celebrate the failure of the coup with various activities, inviting the families and friends of those who died during the fight against the rebels.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose remarks on television on the night on July 15 triggered a popular resistance, is expected to attend several activities.

He will attend either the ceremony in Parliament or the rally near the July 15 Martyrs Bridge, formerly known as Bosporus Bridge, where some of the bloodiest fighting took place.

According to reports, Erdogan is also planning to make a speech in Parliament at 2:37 a.m. local time, the exact time when the building was bombed by coup perpetrators.

The Ankara government blames the followers of the exiled muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of orchestrating the coup attempts that left 248 people dead and some 2,000 others wounded.

The attempt was thwarted by military and police troops loyal to the government, along with pro-Erdogan demonstrators.

A state of emergency is in effect since then and tens of thousands of suspected coup plotters have been arrested or incarcerated in a massive purge, denounced by the opposition and human right organizations.

"Our fundamental emphasis at the events will be to commemorate our martyrs, who took to the streets for their homeland, freedom, liberty and democracy ... to be remembered," presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Monday.

"There will be a special session in parliament, which will be attended by our president," said Kalin, adding that monuments erected especially for the occasion will be inaugurated in Ankara and Istanbul, the two major cities where the botched coup took place.

An AKP official also told Xinhua that events are also planned abroad, including the United States, where Gulen is on self- exiled since the late 1990s.

Turkey has officially and obsessively asked for Gulen's extradition from its NATO ally, but no avail.

"We still think that the leader of a terrorist organization should be extradited. It is hard to understand that an ally country harbors an individual who sought to overthrow the elected government of Turkey. This situation is very regrettable," said the AKP source on the condition of anonymity.

On the streets named after the martyrs of the day and two weeks after, one million people attended a major rally in Istanbul, celebrating the failure of the coup and the rise of the "New Turkey," the slogan used by Erdogan to define its dominant rule.

July 15 has been officially declared the Day for Democracy and Martyrs, a national day that commemorates the coup attempt, amid critics of the political opposition blaming the government to instrumentalize the event to implement an authoritarian rule.

The main opposition party, Republican People's Party (CHP), claims that the coup attempt was a "controlled coup" which was foreseen by secret services but not prevented and then benefited from. The claims sparked ire from Erdogan himself and his government.

"The government knew of the attempts and did nothing. It was used as a pretext to launch a civil coup later with the state of emergency and the massive crackdown that it followed," said recently the head of CHP, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

"Those are lies," lashed out President Erdogan. "We will never let July 15 to be forgotten, or this betrayal to be concealed."

On April 16, the country narrowly approved a crucial constitutional referendum to change Turkey's political system to an executive presidency granting Erdogan sweeping powers.

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