Murat SofuogluTürkiye approaches another anniversary of July 15, which has been a national holiday since the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation or FETO attempted a military intervention to oust the democratically elected government in 2016.
While Türkiye has other important national holidays commemorating events such as the establishment of the Republic in 1923, the opening of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara in 1920, and the Turkish military victory over invading Greek forces during the War of Independence in 1922, July 15 stands out as a reminder of the nation's democratic resilience.
On July 15, 2016, rogue elements of the Turkish military affiliated with the followers of Fetullah Gulen, FETO ringleader, who lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999, attacked key state institutions, including the Grand National Assembly, while also seeking to seize strategic infrastructure such as Istanbul's Strait Bridge, which connects Asia and Europe.
The coup plotters killed at least 253 people and wounded thousands more.
For many, the legacy of July 15 is measured not only in history but in personal experience.
Here are brief personal accounts from ten citizens on how the events of July 15, a night marked by extraordinary stories of bravery, faith, solidarity, confusion and triumph, changed both their lives and their country.
‘Declaration of war’
Hasan Uzun, a real estate consultant, was on the Istanbul Strait Bridge, which was renamed the July 15 Martyrs Bridge to honour the deaths of the day after the 2016 coup attempt.
“When my wife told me that there are scenes of tanks rolling across streets, my first reaction was ‘this is a declaration of war on us’,” Uzun tells TRT World.
Right after seeing tanks rolling through the streets, Uzun, his wife and his father-in-law decided to drive across the bridge, which was the scene of one of the fiercest clashes between civilians and putschist soldiers.
When they got close to the bridge in the Altunizade neighbourhood of Uskudar district, they saw a white Sahin (eagle), a Turkish-manufactured car with broken lights, and courier motorcycles carrying wounded from the bridge confrontations.
“We felt the G-3 bullets ricocheting beside us, whizzing past our ears,” he says.
But the situation on the bridge was much more intense. Uzun saw parts of human organs spread across the asphalt, clear evidence of the deadly violence that had unfolded throughout the night.
In the morning, when he crossed the bridge, he saw that the situation was under control, as pro-coup forces had been defeated.
Ten years after the defeated July 15 coup attempt, Uzun, whose father was also a veteran of Türkiye’s 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation, which also began on July 15, says he is ready to go out to meet any threat to his country.
“If I see another coup attempt or anything like that, I am fully ready to meet them.”
Martyr’s widow
Mustafa Aykac lost his wife, Ayse Aykac, a housewife, who uncharacteristically refused to stay home on the night of July 15, rejecting her husband’s request that she not accompany him to meet coup-plotters on the Istanbul Strait Bridge.
In 2017, TRT World reported the family’s story on the night of July 15.
After the couple ended up on the highway to the bridge, which resembled an apocalyptic scene with so many people in the darkness, “Ayse dragged her husband by the hand, urging him to march ahead of the others, in an unusually daring mood,” placing them in the front row of the hundreds of protesters, the report recounted.
"I do not know [for sure], but I guess my wife was in a hurry [to meet with her destiny as a martyr]," Mustafa told TRT World at the time.
Ten years after the fateful night, Aykac reiterates that, like July 15, today his only aim is to keep Türkiye safe and sound.
“The rest is about details,” he tells TRT World.
“We are always ready to sacrifice our lives for our country’s future,” he says.
“That night, we marched with tens of thousands of people who came from various backgrounds. There were kids, women and elderly people. There were people from all walks of life.”
Artificial burden
Fatih Caliskan, a 39-year-old mechanic, spends his time between visits to his cancer-stricken father in the hospital and his mechanic shop, which he has run since 2018.
He has been in this business for more than 15 years.
Despite being busy with both family and work matters, Caliskan, which means "hard-working," also follows the daily news cycle and has always had thoughts on politics.
“Thankfully, with July 15, our country has been relieved of an artificial burden,” he says, noting that FETO and its activities were exposed during the coup attempt.
Caliskan believes that the event also offers a lesson to many people like him, namely that they should be wary of notorious activities that deliberately seek to exploit Islamic values for personal and nefarious political purposes, referring to the FETO’s so-called religious agenda.
He says if ordinary people had not shown up and sacrificed their lives on the night of July 15, it would have been almost impossible to stop the bloody coup attempt, a testament to the Turkish people’s deep wisdom and patriotic commitment.
“Everybody needs to respect that behaviour,” he tells TRT World.
Breaking point
Kerim Alptekin has been an imam for nearly three decades. He was in Ordu, a western Black Sea city, when the coup attempt occurred in 2016.
Now the 59-year-old is the deputy president of Diyanet-Sen, a union representing people who work under Türkiye’s Religious Affairs Presidency (Diyanet).
“This was a breaking point for the country,” Alptekin tells TRT World, saying that July 15 has changed religious perceptions across the country.
“It was also a coup attempt against Islamic values,” he says, referring to FETO’s misuse of religion, which led many Turkish citizens to be much more careful about religious groups.
“The coup attempt was not only against Turkish democracy but also regular people’s trust in religious institutions,” he says.
“We all need to understand that no religious group can claim to have a monopoly over sacred truth.”
Weathered a major crisis
Zahide Tuba Kor’s work focuses on identifying which forces appeared sympathetic or antagonistic in the coup attempt.
“I worked day and night, translating nearly 100 articles into Turkish within a month and a half, and thereby created a massive archive regarding the global perception of Türkiye and July 15,” Kor tells TRT World.
“My conclusion is if July 15 were successful, Türkiye could sink into a civil war situation,” she says. “We have definitely weathered a major crisis.”
“It was precisely because of this fear that millions of people across surrounding regions—from the Middle East to the Balkans, and from Africa to the Caucasus and Central Asia—spent that coup night sleepless, offering prayers for us,” the 46-year-old researcher says.
“This experience made me realise that Türkiye is not defined solely by its own borders; it occupies a vital position in global and regional geopolitics, and our responsibility is immense.”
Since then, Türkiye has expanded its influence across vast regions from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Central Asia, even strengthening its ties with Libya, a North African state, and Somalia, a country with a strategic location in the Horn of Africa, thereby enhancing its defence industry.
Proud of him
Eyuphan Kaya is a retired teacher and a civil rights advocate from Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in south-eastern Türkiye.
Since retirement, Kaya has written articles for local newspapers and has been involved in numerous social projects, including the current Terror-free Türkiye peace process, which aims to bring a peaceful end to decades-long PKK terrorism.
Kaya’s son, the 29-year-old Halil, a health worker, was about to get married on the night of 15 July 2016, but after he saw tanks rolling down the streets in cities from Istanbul to Ankara, he decided to call off the wedding, telling his fiancée that he needed to join anti-coup protesters in Diyarbakir.
“What he did was something I have been proud of from that fateful day until now,” the 63-year-old tells TRT World, referring to his son’s decision to cancel his wedding.
After the coup attempt was defeated, his son married his wife and has had two daughters since.
Like the Kaya family, most Kurds across Türkiye opposed the coup attempt, joining anti-putsch protests.
Kaya wrote many articles on July 15 explaining the Kurdish role and how it was instrumental in defeating the coup plotters. He says that the Islamic values shared by both Turks and Kurds were critical in his opposition to the coup attempt.
Awareness through art
Adem Donmez is a graphic designer and an academic in the Department of Fine Arts at Dumlupinar University. Over the past decade, he has used his work to help preserve the memory of July 15 through exhibitions and commemorative designs.
"After ten years, some memories of July 15 have faded, which shows that more needs to be done to keep that fateful night alive in people's minds," Donmez tells TRT World.
He has produced a number of designs commemorating the events of July 15 and says his university continues to mark the anniversary every year.
"We are doing our best to keep it alive at our university. We hold an exhibition on July 15 every year," he says.
"While the coup attempt inflicted damage on Türkiye, it also exposed FETO, a notorious group with illicit connections. This helped Türkiye awaken to the group's hidden agenda," Donmez observes.
As an artist, Donmez continues to produce new works inspired by July 15.
"Compared to 10 years ago, I now produce more imaginative work," he says, explaining that his earlier pieces were more realistic because the events of that night were still fresh in his mind.
A decade of memories and lessons
Muzeyyen Tasci, a 55-year-old writer, has spent much of her life advocating for Muslim causes and has been a vocal critic of Israel. For decades, she worked alongside Sule Yuksel Senler, one of Türkiye’s most prominent hijabi human rights advocates.
Tasci views the July 15 coup attempt as a “deep” issue for Türkiye that must be understood from multiple perspectives.
“Their leader (Fetullah Gulen) had served Zionism for a long time,” Tasci tells TRT World, referring to the FETO leader, who died in October 2024 in Pennsylvania, US.
“They infiltrated some of Türkiye’s sensitive institutions, such as the army and judiciary, and launched this treacherous coup attempt on July 15. They also supported Türkiye’s post-modern coup against the Necmettin Erbakan-led conservative government on February 28,” she says, referring to the last successful military intervention in Türkiye in 1997.
Tasci says the July 15 coup attempt was organised through both external and internal forces.
“While external forces have always had designs against Türkiye, internal dynamics led by FETO have made the whole nation deeply upset, inflicting so much pain across the country,” she says.
“Throughout ten years, we have continued to feel this enormous pain in our hearts,” she says. As a result, Tasci argues that the nation must not forget what happened on July 15, warning that forgetting could open the door for those who seek to repeat such an act.
“We need to keep its memories dear and warm, ensuring that future generations remember this fateful day. For a better future, this is crucial for all of us.”
From unease to resolve
Yakup Yagli, 54, works as an industrial and mechanical design manager for audio-electronic building communication systems. Originally from Türkiye's western Aegean region, he has spent nearly two decades in the sector.
Yagli describes the July 15 coup attempt as a "scandal."
He recalls waking up that morning with an uneasy feeling, prompting him to visit the burial site of Imam Birgivi, a prominent Islamic scholar, in Izmir's Odemis district. He also persuaded members of his family to join him.
Throughout the day, they visited several historical and religious sites, including the tombs of leading figures of the Aydinogullari principality, which ruled parts of western Anatolia in the 13th and 14th centuries. They returned to their village in Alasehir, a district of Manisa province, in the evening.
"I was tired and wanted to get some rest. But my cousin called me and told me, 'Warplanes are attacking Ankara.' I was shocked," Yagli tells TRT World.
After watching television coverage of the unfolding events, he left his home and joined fellow residents in the village square to follow developments throughout the night.
"I understood why I had that bad feeling in the morning," he says.
"From that day until now, I have never forgotten how people from all walks of life — from conservatives to leftists — went out into the streets and ‘shielded themselves against that reckless tide’," he says, echoing a famous line by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, the author of the Turkish national anthem.
"July 15 demonstrated the spirit of the Turkish people and their ability to unite at critical moments," he says.
A father's advice and a night of sacrifice
Mine Izgi, a 59-year-old family consultant, has spent years advising families. But on the night of July 15, she followed her visionary father's advice and went outside to stand against the coup plotters.
“We rushed toward the night of July 15 — ready to be reborn or to die. Was it just us? Millions rushed... They flowed and surged like water yearning for its source; the lines ‘I am like a roaring flood; I trample my banks and overflow’ seemed to come to life,” Izgi tells TRT World, quoting another line from Mehmet Akif Ersoy’s poem, which became Türkiye’s national anthem.
She believes that above all else, the country owes a great deal to those who lost their lives on that night.
“The journey was arduous, but the destination is magnificent,” Izgi says, referring to the July 15 martyrs.
“They have departed for that magnificent place; for those left behind, all that remains is to meet them in our dreams and recognize that which transcends all else…”
“If we walk in peace toward the new day that rises after the sun has set, we owe it to them. Please, grant us your forgiveness…”
