{"id":336574,"date":"2017-07-15T08:09:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-15T08:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=336574"},"modified":"2017-07-15T08:09:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-15T08:09:47","slug":"turkey-to-mark-anniversary-of-coup-attempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=336574","title":{"rendered":"Turkey to mark anniversary of coup attempt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Events will be held in Turkey later to mark the first anniversary of a failed coup in which at least 260 people died and 2,196 were wounded.<\/p>\n<p>A faction of the army tried to seize power from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but the attempt collapsed.<\/p>\n<p>Since the coup, the government has dismissed more than 150,000 employees from state institutions in a purge that continued until the anniversary&#8217;s eve.<\/p>\n<p>It has rejected criticism, saying it had to root out coup supporters.<\/p>\n<p>But the purge, as well as a wave of 50,000 arrests alongside it, have galvanised opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Critics say Mr Erdogan is using the purges to stifle political dissent, and last week\u00a0hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Istanbul\u00a0at the end of a 450km (280-mile) &#8220;justice&#8221; march against the government.<\/p>\n<p>Its organiser, opposition politician Kemal Kilicdaroglu, condemned the coup but said the measures Mr Erdogan had taken since constituted a &#8220;second coup&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The president accused the marchers of supporting terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>Huge rallies are due to take place later on Saturday, with President Erdogan addressing parliament at the exact time that it was bombed.<\/p>\n<p>The day has been declared an annual holiday.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Erdogan will also attend a rally in Istanbul on the bridge across the Bosphorus where crowds confronted soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish authorities accuse a movement loyal to the Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, of organising the July 2016 plot to bring down President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Gulen, who remains in the United States, denies any involvement. Washington has so far resisted calls from the Turkish authorities to extradite the cleric.<\/p>\n<p>Istanbul is awash with giant anniversary billboards and posters showing people confronting pro-coup soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>He and his supporters see the defeat of the coup as Turkey&#8217;s rebirth, but for others it is less triumphant, says the BBC&#8217;s Mark Lowen. He says the memory of the coup attempt divides the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Events will be held in Turkey later to mark the first anniversary of a failed coup in which at least 260 people died and 2,196 were wounded. A faction of the army tried to seize power from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but the attempt collapsed. Since the coup, the government has dismissed more than 150,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[9304,9305],"class_list":["post-336574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-coup-attempt-in-turkey","tag-turkey-coup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}