Rich tribute paid to martyrs of July 15, 2016 coup in Turkey

ISLAMABAD: Rich tribute was paid to 251 martyrs of thwarted coup of July 15, 2016 in Turkey when a group of disgruntle of Armed Forces tried to capture the Republic and unarmed people came out to frustrate their designs.

A ceremony was held here at the Turkish embassy compound on Friday where caretaker federal minister Ms. Khurshid Roushan Baroucha was the guest of honour and she couldn’t control her sentiments and was in tears upon watching the cruelties of the group of Turkish Armed Forces in video. She also spoke on the occasion and expressed solidarity with the people of Turkey.

The video of July 16, 2016 events were shown. Large number of diplomats posted in Islamabad attended it. Few officers of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) including an Air Vice Marshal (AVM) also turned up for the ceremony. Turkish Air force also targeted innocent people and later ventured heavy bombardment on Parliament building and Presidential residence in Istanbul and Ankara respectively. The people of Turkey observed the day as “Democracy and National Unity Day.”

Turkish ambassador Mustafa Yurdakul in his address blamed opposition leader Fatehullah Gulan and party for the attempt of aborted coup. The ambassador said that we are still struggling to overcome the trauma of this existential threat to our country. July 15 was not a typical military putsch. It was beyond a military coup d’état and the perpetrators of this hideous undertaking actually consisted of the disciples of Fatehullah Gülen, the man who calls himself “Imam of the Universe”.

He said that it is impossible to find the appropriate words to describe the brutality and treachery that the putsches displayed that night. It was the worst act of terror in the history of the Turkish Republic. The plotters used lethal military hardware against innocent civilians who took to the streets to defend their democratic institutions.

Fatehullah Gülen, leader of FETÖ, was the mastermind behind what happened in Turkey on July 15th. Fatehullah Gülen and his disciples planned and tried to capture the Turkish Republic and did not shied away from using lethal military force against innocent civilians, killing 251 and wounding thousands. “Two years long investigations and judicial process on the events of 16 July have produced countless crucial evidence. Most recent findings illustrate that even on the night of 15 July the plotters were in direct communication with the FETÖ leadership,” Ambassador Mustafa Yurdakul said. They disguised themselves as a benign education movement, when they started the campaign of establishing schools in Turkey and later around the world. But, we now understand that this was the first step of an infiltration campaign where kids and their parents were recruited with the seemingly innocent promise of a better education and a good job. These kids were put through school with academic and financial help and mainly a heavy hand in indoctrination.

They did not care about upholding the constitution or the legal system of the country. The crime syndicate behind all this devised and ran an integrated system that took care of recruitment through schools and cram schools; financing was taken care of by holding companies and donations from business people. The organisation established media houses to shape the public opinion for and against any person, group or idea. Many persons in Turkey who saw the organisation for what it really is got lynched through these media houses. These media houses became focal point of actions taken against journalists, academicians, bureaucrats and military officers who opposed them, or tried to expose them. They were lynched and purged.

As the organisation grew stronger and became more affluent it started meddling in business transactions, government tender processes. Laundering enormous sums of money, arranging illegal transfers of cash and other financial crimes became business as usual.