Turkey’s
president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, remains in power on Saturday after
quelling an attempted coup by military officers who seized control of
state television the night before, and then proceeded to shell the
parliament in Ankara, deploy troops on major bridges in Istanbul and
put tanks on the streets of both cities.
While
Erdogan has many critics, and has cracked down on dissent even on
social networks, there was no evidence of popular support for the
attempted coup.
[...]
After the
officers claimed control of the country in a statement they forced a
presenter to read on TRT, the state broadcaster, the country’s
internet and phone networks remained out of their control. That
allowed Erdogan to improvise an address to the nation in a FaceTime
call to CNN Turk, a private broadcaster the military only managed to
force off the air later in the night, as the coup unraveled. In his
remarks, the president called on people to take to the streets.
[...]
Resistance
to the coup was also encouraged by vivid images on social networks of
abuses by the military forces, including distressing video clips of a
helicopter gunship firing at civilians and fighter jets swooping low
over Istanbul.
Full
report:
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