Turkey's coup trials: Shadows and doubts

Ten months have passed since the bloody coup attempt of July 15, 2016 and we are finally talking about a judicial process. The trial that has been taking place in Ankara for a week is limited to the military officers who allegedly took part in the coup activities on that night. There are also several other small trials in provinces like Malatya, Adıyaman and Muğla. There is one thing in common in all of them: Only the soldiers are the ones who are forced to do the embarrassing walk in front of crowds chanting for the death penalty.

Let's be clear. The attempt would not be called a coup if it had not been for the military involvement. But the failure of due process in the aftermath has created so many question marks that even the most faithful supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are having a hard time explaining the purges.

Prof. Tayyar Arı, the dean of Uludağ University's Administrative Sciences School, said on private broadcaster CNN Türk last week that academia is having a harder time recruiting talent. "The president wants people to be employed, but nobody wants to take the risk of hiring a Gülenist if they had managed to hide themselves," Arı said. 

Let's go back to the courtroom where high-ranking generals of the coup attempt are being tried. Former Air Force Commander Akın Oztürk claimed that he was called in by his predecessor to go and stop the activity. Former General Hakan Evrim of the Akıncı Air Base, the center of the coup attempt, has denied all claims that he is linked to the Fethullah Terror Organization (FETÖ). So it has all become very murky. While the generals are in court dodging questions, young military students who did not even have a gun in their hands that night have been locked up for months.