Petitions are an indispensable part of democracy, and Turks cling to them to vent their fury against Gülenists responsible for the failed coup attempt of July 15 and for solidarity.

A petition on the White House website has already collected more than 73,000 signatures, short of the 100,000 required to get a response from Washington, asking the country to extradite Fethullah Gülen, the prime suspect in the coup and a resident of Pennsylvania. The petition (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/i-would-our-government-stop-providing-safe-haven-fethullah-gulen-and-i-want-him-delivered-turkey) says the United States should stop providing a safe haven to Fethullah Gülen and have him delivered to Turkey where he faces charges of terrorism and multiple life sentences.

More than 1,300 academics and researchers also launched a petition in 15 languages to condemn the coup and explain it to the international community (http://www.academicsagainstcoup.com) Turkish academics in more than 20 countries endorse the campaign via a declaration in English, Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. "As academics around the world we strongly condemn the coup attempt carried out by a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, now identified as the Gülenist junta, on Friday July 15th. We stand against this military intervention that threatened the unity and security of the Turkish Republic by attacking the Turkish Parliament, National Intelligence Service Headquarters, Presidential Complex, Special Forces Unit, and many other municipality headquarters and councils and opening fire on civilians. We stand with the people of Turkey who took to the streets and stood firmly against the military intervention at the expense of their lives. We expect and make a call to academic institutions, international NGOs and media to recognize and support Turkish people's political will," the declaration reads.

Ayşe Seyyide Kaptaner from Imperial College London is one of the organizers of the campaign. Kaptaner told Anadolu Agency they started it because the academic world did not show any reaction to the "brutality" of the coup. She said the international community did not respond to the coup attempt, and the Western media misrepresented the incidents during the coup.