Difficult memories of the "post-modern" coup of Feb. 28, 1997 still affect the country's conscience 21 years after the notorious incident as trials for the plotters continue. Many public servants, officers and civilians were victimized when they were sacked from their jobs and sent to prison. Women who wore headscarves were denied education after the upper echelons in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) forced the elected government to resign under the guise of protecting Kemalism and secularism. The consequences of the Feb. 28 coup linger, and trials are ongoing two decades later. The coup was a lengthy process that derailed the lives of thousands deemed reactionary by the secular elite behind it.
Although the coup did not involve killings and has been called postmodern, it disrupted those forced to drop out of school, those dismissed from their jobs and those imprisoned on trumped-up charges.
The 97th hearing of a trial of dozens accused of running the postmodern coup was scheduled to start in Ankara earlier this month for mostly top military suspects accused of scheming to topple the government over two decades ago. However, it was postponed to an unspecified date.
The trial started five years ago, but all of the defendants, including a former military chief, were released pending trial. Last December, prosecutors asked for life imprisonment for 60 suspects, including former Chief of General Staff Gen. İsmail Hakkı Karadayı. The prosecutor's statement accuses the 85 year old who was the chief of General Staff during the coup, and his deputy at the time, retired Gen. Çevik Bir, 78, of plotting to topple the government. Karadayı served as chief of General Staff from 1994 to 1998 at a time when the military was under pressure by then Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and his conservative Welfare Party (RP) over secular concerns. On Feb. 28, 1997, the military-dominated National Security Council threatened action if Erbakan did not back down. He resigned four months later, whereas the RP and its successor, the Virtue Party, were banned by the Constitutional Court in Jan. 1998 and June 2001.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), victims deeply scarred by the events of Feb. 28 recalled their painful memories of the coup.
Nuray Canan Songur, head of the Human First Foundation, was one of the many victims of the ban on headscarves in those days. Songur said she was not allowed to take her exam and was arrested for supposedly hindering education, just two weeks before graduation.
"I was forced to sign a paper saying that I created uproar in class. I hindered my friends' education, but I was the one whose education had been hindered," Songur said of her time at Istanbul University's Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty. She added that she was sentenced to six months in jail after a two-year trial.
Another victim, Fatma Aydın Ataş, said the circumstances in her country back then forced her to wear a wig instead of a headscarf. She came up with the idea after she was not allowed take exams because she wore a headscarf. "I still have that wig. I didn't throw it away because I didn't want to forget those days. I wanted to show my children that I had to wear that disgusting wig," Ataş, who used to study at Marmara University's Faculty of Communication, said.
Mustafa Hacımustafaoğulları, a retired senior Air Force colonel, said he was dismissed from the Turkish military while serving as squadron leader. He was accused of being involved in "reactionary activities" and also sent to jail for 28 days. About the unfair treatment, he said he was among the top 10 students at the Air Force Academy and was a successful officer. His only crime was that he was a religious man.
Murat Karakoca, who studied at a military school and served the country as a soldier for 10 years, said he too was dismissed from the army for similar reasons. Karakoca said it had been very hard for him to adjust to his new life as he searched for a new job, adding that the dismissed soldiers from that time were ostracized because of the discrimination they faced.
Mehmet Emin İnce, head of public health services at the Provincial Directorate of Health in the southern Gaziantep province, recalled how he was unable to graduate simply because he kept a beard "according to rules of Islam." İnce, who used to study at Cumhuriyet University's Medical Faculty in the central province of Sivas, eventually got his degree 10 long years later.
The seeds of the process that led to the widespread attack on conservatives after Feb. 28, 1997 were planted on June 28, 1996 when the RP succeeded in forming a coalition government with the center-right True Path Party (DYP), and Erbakan became prime minister. Soon after, mainstream media, supported by top brass in the military, started to attack the government, accusing it of threatening secularism and Kemalism. The pressure culminated in a military ultimatum issued by top generals in the National Security Council, which at the time was dominated by the military.
On May 21, 1997, the Chief Prosecutor's Office at the Supreme Court of Appeals filed a complaint in the Constitutional Court that called for the closure of the RP, accusing it of being "the center of illegal activities, with some members threatening the secular regime." A few weeks later, every member of the Constitutional Court was taken to the Office of the Chief of General Staff for a briefing on the dangers of fundamentalism. While at first Erbakan resisted the pressure, he was eventually forced to step down on June 18, 1997.
Despite the leaders of the so-called post-modern coup believing the system they imposed would last 1,000 years, it collapsed in five due to heavy-handed oppression and an economic crisis in 1999. The crisis created the grounds for ousting Erbakan from the Prime Ministry, which was followed by the installation of a string of coalition governments, whose unsuccessful administrations paved the way for economic catastrophe. After a turbulent three years, Erbakan's protege, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AK Party), gained an overwhelming majority in the 2002 general elections.
