The Turkish nation will not forget those who stood up against the Feb. 28 post-modern coup and those who sided by the putschists, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Monday, as the country marked a quarter of a century since the coup, which left traumatic scars on millions of people and a dark stain on the country’s democracy.

"This nation has convicted the putschists and their supporters at the ballot box first and in their conscience," Erdoğan told a conference held by the Şule Yüksel Şenler Foundation, a foundation formed under the name of women’s rights activist, who was one of the first headscarf-wearing journalists in Turkey.

Presidential Spokesperson Ibrahim Kalın also issued a message on the anniversary of the coup, saying that Feb. 28 is recorded as a dark stain to last 1,000 years.

"The strong will of the people, their wisdom and endless determination slapped the biggest fine for the putschists," Kalın said, adding that the Turkish people will never let putschist take over the democratically elected government.

"Turkey’s future was stolen," the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Group Deputy Chairperson Muhammet Emin Akbaşoğlu said, referring to the post-modern coup. He noted that it resulted in tremendous economic losses of up to hundreds of millions of dollars and shelved the will of the people.

Meanwhile, visitors flocked to the Adnan Menderes Democracy Museum in Aydın province, to remember the bitter legacy of tutelage, which toppled Prime Minister Menderes in 1960 and ultimately executed him.

Some 20,000 visitors were recorded at the museum since its inauguration in January 2022, Ihlas News Agency (IHA) reported Monday.

Unlike a coup, where military elements take over the state apparatus, the Feb. 28 coup involved a National Security Council (MGK) meeting that lasted almost nine hours.

A series of controversies preceded the coup, creating political chaos and disrupting societal peace. One of the most prominent images of the coup involved 15 military tanks and 20 armored carriers passing through the streets in the Sincan district of Turkey’s capital Ankara, heading to Yenikent on Feb. 4, 1997. The incident was seen as a warning by the military, while some residents of Sincan thought a coup was taking place.

The meeting produced what would come to be known as the "February 28 Memorandum," which contained a list of resolutions by the Turkish military taken in response to what it deemed "rising Islamist ideology," which they claimed posed a threat to the country’s secular foundation.

The memorandum’s main premises included provisions to shut down the Islamic education-based imam hatip schools and prevent religious activities under the pretext of separating religion from the state.

One of the most traumatizing provisions was the prohibition of the Islamic headscarf, banning women from entering any public buildings, including schools and universities. This ban caused millions of young women to either give up their education or suffer while trying to receive a proper one. Female teachers were also dismissed from their jobs if they refused to remove their headscarves and the abhorred practice of "persuasion rooms" was launched in universities, where headscarf-wearing students would be "persuaded" to remove their headscarves amid threats of expulsion from the school. Women wearing headscarves were also not permitted to work.

Then-Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan was forced to sign the decrees, contrary to his political party’s ideologies. In June 1997, Erbakan was then forced to resign with his Cabinet, leaving leadership to his coalition partner Tansu Çiller, the chairperson of the True Path Party (DYP).

Then-President Süleyman Demirel, who was barred from having any political affiliation according to the laws back then, later asked Mesut Yılmaz, leader of the right-wing liberal Motherland Party (ANAP), to form a new government.

In what has since been termed Turkey’s "post-modern" coup, a new government was unveiled, which took the reins of power from Erbakan. The new government included ANAP, the Democratic Left Party (DSP) and the Democrat Turkey Party (DTP).

DSP leader Bülent Ecevit became the deputy prime minister in the new administration, which was then used to enforce the MGK’s orders.

Private schools and foundations with alleged links to religious or conservative groups were shut, while devout Muslims were largely marginalized from public institutions – including government agencies, state universities, the civil service, the judiciary and the military.

Erbakan’s Welfare Party was abolished based on a decision issued by Turkey’s Constitutional Court on Feb. 22, 1998, while several politicians – including Erbakan, Şevket Kazan, Ahmet Tekdal, Şevki Yılmaz, Hasan Hüseyin Ceylan and Ibrahim Halil Çelik – were banned from participating in politics for five years.

One of the masterminds of the Feb. 28 coup, the Turkish military’s then-Land Forces Cmdr. Hüseyin Kıvrıkoğlu, who would later become head of Turkish Chief of Staff, once said that "Feb. 28 will last 1,000 years," but he was utterly wrong in his wishful thinking.

Only five years later, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) chaired by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was chosen by the Turkish public in democratic elections, and the party has never lost an election since 2002. The Erdoğan-led party has since implemented many reforms to prevent the military from intervening in Turkish democracy and politics.

After the military influence over the Turkish judiciary and politics was gradually eliminated, the perpetrators of the Feb. 28 post-modern coup were brought to justice.