Received Date: 18/06/2019 • Accepted Date: 26/12/2019
Introduction
On the night of July 15, 2016, Turkey witnessed a failed coup attempt headed by a small group of soldiers who were allegedly linked to a transnational Islamic sect –the Fetullah Gülen community, also known as the Fetullah Terror Organization (FETÖ) within the Turkish security discourse. Although this coup was not the first to occur in Turkish political history, the street demonstrations which began immediately after the onset of the attempted coup, and the dynamics that made the attempt possible in the first instance, were quite novel in the socio-political context of the country. The telephone appeal on the part of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on CNN Türk on July 16 at 00:24 a.m. to his followers to resist the coup d’état resulted in a significant outpouring as thousands of people mobilized to rally against the military junta. Many civilians stood up against the guns, tanks, and bombs, and many of them braved bullet fire as well. As a result, 248 people died and 2,196 were injured during the abortive coup.1
