A major roadblock on the path to democracy, the 1980 coup remains fresh in Türkiye’s political memory. On Tuesday, Türkiye will mark the anniversary of the third military takeover of the democratically elected government since the foundation of the Republic of Türkiye in 1923. The date is the beginning of a tragedy for families who lost members to arbitrary executions and detentions under a military junta that justified martial law it declared with an end to "political turmoil" that preceded the coup on Sept. 12.

The Turkish democracy struggled to thrive before the coup and amid the stormy 1970s marked with heightened political activism by left-wing and right-wing groups. Politically motivated murders, as well as those blamed on innocent activists, were common. The powerful army, which used a similar pretext while toppling Adnan Menderes’ government in 1960, stepped in to end what the junta leader Kenan Evren called "anarchy and terrorism" fuelled by the government’s failure to tackle the issue and the economic, social and political problems.

The Evren-led junta abolished the Parliament and imposed lengthy political bans on most politicians. The new military regime’s rule indeed ended the murders, riots and overall unrest in the country. But what followed was the worst for many. People with the slightest political affiliation with any faction deemed hostile by the junta found themselves jailed without charges. Tortured for months and banned from visits, they were traumatized for the rest of their lives. Elsewhere, the military junta launched an indiscriminate policy of executions by hanging. As Evren later admitted, they hanged "one from the left and one from the right" to keep "the balance."

Charges against the executed were rarely proven. In other cases, discrepancies abound in cases against activists like Erdal Eren. Eren, a minor at the time of the murder of a soldier during a riot in the capital, Ankara, was accused of the murder and hanged in December 1980, though he was underage.

Erasing the traces

One lingering aspect of the 1980 coup is a Constitution drafted by the junta in 1982. Türkiye seeks to replace it with a new one, as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan often says they need a civilian constitution. This new constitution will likely be debated when the Parliament returns from a summer recess soon. Erdoğan himself is expected to attend a symposium organized by the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications and Legal Policies Board on Tuesday. Legal experts will discuss the new Constitution at the event entitled "2023 Constitution." The event will be held in the Ulucanlar Museum in Ankara, which served as a prison during the military junta’s rule.

Since 1982, the current Constitution has seen several amendments. The government wants to take it one step further, introducing an entirely new constitution. The proposed changes focus on the topics of freedom, the right to security, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech as well and the rights of women and the disabled.

The enhancement of these rights and liberties has seen setbacks in the bureaucracy that have prevented these rights and freedoms from being implemented properly. The plan has been prepared in accordance with the observations and reports of the international mechanisms that monitor human rights in cooperation with several human rights groups. Some of the other principles of the plan are human dignity, as the essence of all rights, under the active protection of the law; the equal, impartial and honest provision of public services to everyone; fortification of the rule of law in all areas as a safeguard for rights and freedoms, and the guarantee of liberty to express criticism and free speech.

Victims

Journalist Mehmet Emin Karakulak is among the victims of the coup. Karakulak was a 17-year-old boy who had just graduated from high school when he was detained. And 43 years on, he vividly remembers the torture he suffered at the hands of junta officials. Karakulak, who lives in the southeastern province of Mardin, acknowledged the situation was not good before the coup but did not accept the widespread human rights violations the coup brought.

"It was anarchy before the 1980 coup. People did not know whether their friends or family members would return home alive once they went out. After the coup, (the junta) detained everyone within a month. Anarchy and chaos ended, but inhumane torture started then. They did not care whether those they detained or hanged were guilty or not. We went through a social trauma, and people still suffer from it," he told Ihlas News Agency (IHA) ahead of the coup’s anniversary.

Karakulak was among the unfortunate incarcerated in "Prison Number Five," as it is officially known, or Diyarbakır prison in the eponymous southeastern province. The prison, which now serves as a museum, was the scene of constant torture for those incarcerated at the hands of military officers. After six months in prison, during which he was not formally charged, he was released when authorities ruled for non-prosecution. "I still see the hours of torture in my dreams," Karakulak, who did not elaborate, said. After his release, a tough life awaited him as he could not find a job for a long time due to his incarceration.

Mehmet Güney, who was the last leader of Akıncılar, an association he describes as "Islamic," fled Türkiye to escape detention and torture. Güney remembers seeing his wanted posters plastered everywhere, from train stations to airports, after the coup. He was among those the police and military could "shoot to kill," as a list regularly broadcast by state-run radio and television said back then.

Güney said though the coup appeared to be an impromptu action by a military council disturbed by current affairs, they knew long before that a coup was in the making. "They had already declared martial law in 30 provinces," he recalled.

Güney told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday that insecurity and anarchy were prevalent and forced a one-year closure of Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, where he was a student, in 1976. He believes there was a wider plot to pave the way for the coup and justify the military junta’s takeover. "They had already declared a state of emergency and it was a period when rights and justice were suspended," he highlighted.

Güney added that for the junta mindset, everyone was a threat, whether they were left-wing, right-wing or "Islamist" like him. One year before the coup, Güney was detained by Martial Law Command in Ankara and spent a year in the notorious Mamak prison, where he was tortured for days. "I was charged with (Islamism), something that was a crime back then," he recounted. Güney says conditions in Mamak were as bad as those in Diyarbakır prison, as the two prisons had been symbols of the "dirty face of the coup."

Following the coup, 650,000 people were detained and 230,000 people were tried in 210,000 trials across the country. Courts ruled by the military sought the death sentence for more than 7,000 people and 50 out of 517 people sentenced to death were hanged. The exact number is not known, but some 300 people are believed to have died after suffering from torture in prisons. The citizenship of another 14,000 people was revoked, while 30,000 people were declared "persona non grata" and dismissed from their jobs.

On Oct. 9, 1980, the first death sentences were carried out. Necdet Adalı, a left-wing activist accused of involvement in the killing of right-wingers and Mustafa Pehlivanoğlu, an "ülkücü" (Idealist), a right-wing activist, were hanged on the same day. Both were in their 20s when they were hanged and both were implicated on similar charges, though without any substantial evidence.

The 1980 coup was not the last one to shake Türkiye as military tutelage made its presence felt in Turkish politics for years to come. In 1997, it reared its ugly head again for the so-called "postmodern coup," a bloodless attempt that forced the collapse of the government after a military ultimatum targeting professor Necmettin Erbakan, also a victim of the 1980 coup. But finally, in 2012, Türkiye managed to put two surviving coup leaders, Kenan Evren and Tahsin Şahinkaya, on trial. Both men were too ill to attend but gave brief statements to the court through a video link system from their hospital beds.

During the proceedings, Evren refused to answer questions from prosecutors, maintaining that the court had no right to put him on trial. He made a brief statement saying the military was forced to intervene and introduce a "new constitutional order to bring peace and calm."

"The Sept. 12 movement was a historic event," he said. "Historic events cannot be put on trial. They are examined scientifically." "The great Turkish nation did not deserve to live through the (1970s) events," he testified. "We did what was right at the time and if it happened today, we would carry out a military coup again," he said.

Eventually, both men were sentenced to life and stripped of their military titles. But both died in quick succession due to illnesses stemming from their old age as appeal processes by their lawyers were underway. One year later, Türkiye would be rocked by an attempted coup, this time by military infiltrators of the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ).

But an unprecedented public resistance, at the cost of 251 lives, foiled the attempt. Unlike the previous coups, Türkiye moved swiftly to bring the perpetrators to justice, and hundreds involved in the coup attempt were sentenced to life.