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Is there any real proof that Gulen is behind the coup? I'ved heard a number of Turks both here and on Quora saying he is, but I've never seen any proof presented. It seems like it shouldn't be too hard to find given that the movement is supposedly huge.

I am not saying you are asking the wrong question of anything, and I am sorry if it reads as a snarky comment, but if it quack like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck... it's shadowy politics after all, not physics. Would you expect the coup organizers to have written paper notes saying "yes, we did it"?

>I am not saying you are asking the wrong question of anything, and I am sorry if it reads as a snarky comment, but if it quack like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck... it's shadowy politics after all, not physics. Would you expect the coup organizers to have written paper notes saying "yes, we did it"?

Given that all of the previous military coups in Turkey were carried out by the secularist military establishment, you need to present evidence beyond accusations that the Gulenist movement, an Islamist movement, is behind this one. Show us the quacking and walking.

For quacking, http://www.city-journal.org/html/who-fethullah-gülen-13504.h... check paragraph of quotation from a Gulen's leaked speech.

For walking, multiple sources confirms that for years, they stole questions for army and police college entrance exams.

Of course also the statements of coup officials.

Again, given that the all previous military coups have been conducted by secularists, you're gonna need to provide specific evidence that the coup was planned by the Gulenists.

The quotation you point to has nothing to do with the coup at all, it's from the 90s and describes a totally different hypothetical situation, one in which his supporters have seized control of all state institutions. That is clearly not the case. It's Erdogan's AKP that has gradually seized control of all institutions in Turkey.

The events of 2013-2014 that solely aimed overthrowing Erdogan were undeniably controlled by Gulen movement. However they lost the battle big time.

One or two weeks before the coup, some army officials in Izmir were detained linked with a previous army spy case and they were linked to Gulen. The supreme military council was about to be happening with the agenda of sacking multiple army officials related with him.

IMO, coup was not solely planned by Gulen, but they were involved significantly.

Lastly, again, check multiple coup officials' statements.

The confessions of a few captives, under duress from a dictator that's purging both public and private sectors of all opposition under false pretenses and threatening to bring back executions, carry very little weight in my book. There's a long history of compelled false confessions in similar circumstances.

The 2013-2014 protests consisted of just about everyone who opposed Erdogan.

Events of end of 2013 and 2014 were not about Gezi protests. This is about the corruption scandal and claims. Wikipedia link (Although probably quite biased) :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Tur...

If you mean investigating the corrupt for corruption then I'd say that was closer to legitimate democracy than a coup.

it was their previous try. It probably contained legitimate claims mixed with stuff that fit their agenda. Now hopeless, they tried their last chance and failed miserably.

Very valid question and I tried to explain it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12189296

Basically, few police chiefs dismissed for Gulen affiliation were caught inside the tanks involved in the coup and there are videos of it.

Sorry, but you have not provided any proof in the linked comment. It is just hearsay.

Fair enough. Here is an article with a video: http://www.mynet.com/haber/guncel/emniyet-muduru-vatan-cadde...

If you were a Gulenist you would have claimed that this video is not what it isand try to be likeable so people who don't speak Turkish would choose to believe you.

A proper Gulenist would say that this video just shows a guy in a military uniform. What you should do is to google the name of the guy and find old articles with photos about him being dismissed from his job as a police chief.

There are reports about him committing suicide.

From reading a few articles with help of Google Translate, the current purge of Gulenists seems to be similar to persecution of Falun Gong in China. Just another case of history repeating itself.

The subject is incredibly complex. Google Translate would not help you.

I would suggest reading articles by foreigners living in Turkey.

Try Claire Berlinsky, a British national and the biographer of Margaret Thatchet. She is living in Turkey since a decade and closely following the political science.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ClaireBerlinski

Though that just shows there were some alleged Gulenists involved and I gather Gulenists are about 10% of the population. It doesn't prove Gulen himself was involved.

That's the spirit.

10% is a major over estimation. I would say 2-3%. Also you clearly have no idea on how this kind of structures work.

>no idea on how this kind of structures work

I admit to confusion. However considering who was behind the coup there are two leading hypotheses - Gulen or Erdogan, both widely suspected of being responsible by the Turks.

A main instigator was "General Mehmet Dişli, the brother of a long-serving MP with the ruling AK party, allegedly gave the order that set the coup in motion, sending army special forces officers to arrest the military’s senior command." (Guardian).

He's "a two-star general who happens to be the brother of Saban Dişli, a former vice president of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Saban is a close confidant of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan."

So that's a fairly direct connection for Erdogan being linked. Is there anything like that for Gulen? Like a coup leader being a brother of one of Gulen's mates? Also Gulen has preached peace throughout whereas Erdogan seemed quite happy to go kill Kurds when he felt it would help him politically.

Guardian and NYT are trying hard to support that theory because they have their axes to grind against Erdogan, no doubt about it.

That aside, I do not think being the brother of a former vice president means anything when there are overwhelming more evidence supporting Gulen hypothesis. Read press in Turkey (critical to Erdogan) for what I mean. I am still trying not to suggest Gulen movement is violent, but they did screw up on this one. He will also be responsible for the ramifications of this.

Your statement "happy to kill Kurds" is also absurd. I am not at all supporting nationalist tune of the government but come on, PKK started the fire by filling the streets of poor Kurdish towns with tons of explosives and detonating them without hesitation, putting Ak-47's to the hands of teenagers and forcing and threatening civilians to stay, destroying their houses and using them as human shield. I have zero sympathy to PKK for what they did to their own people.

You may be right. I'm going off the NYTs 2015 editorial:

>Ahead of new elections set for Nov. 1, Mr. Erdogan last month reignited a war with Kurdish separatists, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or P.K.K., in an apparent effort to rally support for the government and thus salvage his ambitions for continued authoritarian rule and greatly expanded powers.

Regards reading the Turkish press the recent "16 TV channels, 23 radio stations, 45 papers, 15 magazines and 29 publishers will be shut" and various reporters arrested stuff makes me wonder if there may be some bias there.

Turkish media had overwhelming evidence on this (all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and many high ranking generals had been incapacitated by their subordinates during the coup attempt). Sadly, none of the communications, testimonies, or sequence of events even superficially surfaced on the Western media.

This coup attempt was unusual to Turks in that for twelve hours we didn't know who was behind the coup. Contrast that with the coup in 1980 where the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff appeared on state TV, and informed the public of their action.

Edit: Search & translate hurriyet.com or sozcu.com.tr's archives for details. The Hurriyet newspaper is more mainstream, trustworthy, and has been critical of Erdogan. Sozcu is vocally critical of Erdogan (and usually for good reason).

From the German newspaper FOCUS:

"Half an hour after the shooting started the British intelligence service GCHQ intercepted phone calls, e-mails and SMS from within the Turkish government apparatus saying that the purges would start next day and that Gülen should be presented as the mastermind of the coup"

Still too early to confirm since it's the only publication that claims this.

It'd be unusual for GCHQ to leak that kind of thing.

As a Greek I’m glad that Erdogan prevailed. At least with him in power we’ve been through a long period of relative peace of mind. I’m not sure that would be the case if the coup had succeeded.

Nice observation!

What makes you so confident it was Gulenists?

I think this is a very valid question. For me, the undeniable fingerprint of Gulenists is the fact that police chiefs dismissed for affiliation with Gulen were caught inside the military tanks. There are videos of it and I don't see any other logical explanation for catching suspicious civilians in military vehicles during a coup.

For people who followed the last 10 years of the Turkish politics, the Gulenist affiliation is obvious but I think it is still very hard to explain it to people who are exposed for the first time. Before Erdogan, the Turkish military was actively cracking down on the Gulenist infiltration and it is 40 years old subject with hard to believe but proved multiple times conspiracies.

Gulenists always abuse the benefit of doubt and as a secretive cult usually the evidences against them have some kind of explanation and all these strange coincidences are tagget as normal. After all, there is nothing stopping the Lottery from winning on the 1 2 3 4 5 6 numbers every time, its just improbable so it is not 100.000000% guarantied to be fraud.

And what happens if Erdogan refuses to give up power, despite any elections?

Will you still support "democracy" then or will you be in favor of a coup?

How likely do you think it is? To me extremely low.

You would need a military who's primary mission is to uphold democracy in a non partisan way, much like the Turkish army since Ataturk's Reforms.

In a normal democracy, he'll get arrested for doing that, no? :) Of course, if he refuses than he'll sure have a military power backing him, be it the police force or a part of the military or both. And that's just another coup, I expect the same response we showed against Jul 15th coup attempt: uprising and sane part of the military's action.

Do you think you'd be alive as an atheist in Turkey if the past coups had not happened?

I would be in a much better condition.

Coup of 1980 destroyed Turkish left and opened the door to rightwing extremists. In 14-15 years after the coup, fundamentalists and nationalists pretty much seized the bureaucracy, which led to the raise of Erdogan and deterioration of secularism.

But maybe the coup would have been the best that could happen.

Now you're probably facing a Third Reich like Turkey :(

how safe are you in turkey as a self described atheist?

Turkey is a secular nation with no official state religion.

Not for much longer.

(The rating on the above comment has been fluctuating wildly for that last two hours, from -1 to +3 and back.)

Atheists in Turkey are safe but I wouldn't recommend going out into a city square touting atheism. I think a lot of people don't realize that you can live a western life in some Turkish cities without major issues. The risks come from being an activist against Erdogan.