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15 July witnesses recall the night: 'The people faced tanks with bare hands'
Senior officials from the time gathered on the anniversary of the 15 July coup attempt and recounted the critical moments of that night and the people's resistance.
On the anniversary of the 15 July treacherous coup attempt, regarded as one of the biggest turning points in Türkiye's recent history, important witnesses to 15 July gathered at the Enstitü Sosyal building in Üsküdar. In their speeches, the witnesses discussed episodes involving FETÖ militants and their aims on the night of the coup, as well as the people's struggle in the streets against the organization.
İpek Coşkun Armağan, General Coordinator of Enstitü Sosyal and a member of the Presidential Board for Social and Youth Policies, delivered the opening speech. Videos and accounts prepared about 15 July were shown.
Speakers then took the stage in turn: Necdet Subaşı, who was a prime ministerial adviser at the time; writer Hasan Mert Kaya; Mustafa Çalışkan, who was Istanbul provincial police chief at the time; former Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak; Bekir Bozdağ, who was justice minister at the time; and A Haber anchor Banu El, who was on air during the night of the coup.
'No police officer will surrender their weapon or leave their post'
Mustafa Çalışkan said that, as the coup attempt began, they had been planning a counterterrorism operation against Daesh in his office on Vatan Avenue. He said he immediately issued an order after receiving news that soldiers were trying to seize the police's weapons.
“No police officer will ever surrender their weapon. They will resist if necessary and use their weapons if necessary,” Çalışkan said, stressing that they had instilled a clear stance in all personnel in the field that night. He said the order eliminated moments of hesitation and, spreading through radio and social media channels, crossed Istanbul's borders and became one of the most important turning points in the resistance across Türkiye.
'We secured the airport on the President's instructions'
Sharing details of his conversations with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan later that night, Çalışkan said they had continued the struggle with determination despite having only one armored vehicle left in the city.
Çalışkan said that when President Erdoğan asked, “How is the tower?”, he understood the importance of the situation and immediately called the teams at the airport. He said they cleared the tower of the coup plotters after receiving the instruction, “If necessary, die there, but come back to me within 15 to 20 minutes and say that we have retaken the tower,” and ensured that the President landed safely at the airport.
'Heroes like our chief showed great fortitude'
Former Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak took the microphone after Mustafa Çalışkan and said: “There are many historic moments from the night of 15 July, some of which will go to the grave with us, and I hope they will all be revealed when the time comes.
While we were tested that night both personally and through our children, heroes like our chief Mustafa showed great fortitude without even having the opportunity to say goodbye to their children. May God be pleased with him.
That dark night was an unprecedented epic in which not only state institutions but also millions of citizens, with God's help and a feeling of tranquility descending from heaven, stood before tanks with their bare hands against an organized coup planned months or years in advance.
Under normal circumstances, even if we had agreed to meet on a bridge at 9 p.m., we might not have been able to bring so many people together. Yet that treacherous operation was thwarted that night thanks to the immense grace and prayers that surrounded our nation.
'One of the two pilots was a FETÖ member and tried to divert us'
“What we experienced during our flight is the clearest evidence of how critically important operations were being managed that night.
Because our phones were being monitored, we made diversionary moves involving Bodrum, Aydın, İzmir and Dalaman so that our destination could not be predicted. Indeed, when we landed in Dalaman at the last moment and boarded the plane, the pilots—one of whom we later learned was a FETÖ member—tried to direct us to Sabiha Gökçen even though we knew it was experiencing problems.
Despite all the attempts to block us by warning that trucks might have been placed on the runway at Atatürk Airport and that we could crash, we persuaded the President to land safely at the airport after receiving the assurance from Chief Mustafa: ‘The operation is complete; we have strong support behind us.’”
'He told the coup plotters through his speech that parliament was standing'
Bekir Bozdağ, who was justice minister at the time, took the stage at the end of the program moderated by journalist Banu El.
Bozdağ said: “On the night of 15 July, our people staged an unprecedented resistance in history by standing against tanks and aircraft with their bare hands. As members of parliament, we stood up for the national will by keeping the doors of Parliament open that night with the determination that ‘you cannot enter without stepping over our bodies.’
The FETÖ terrorists directly targeted and bombed the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, the seat of the national will. This was an attempt not merely to destroy a building but to eliminate the will of 86 million people. Yet Parliament continued its work without interruption in the face of this despicable attack, engraving in history the historic stance of the Gazi Assembly, which earned the title ‘Gazi’ a second time.”
'I instructed Selami Yıldız to change the protection detail and shoot those who resisted'
Bekir Bozdağ also discussed the resolve shown on behalf of the state by Selami Yıldız, the current Istanbul provincial police chief, under instructions he received during the treacherous coup attempt of 15 July.
Bozdağ said: “At the time, FETÖ, which had surrounded the judiciary and the police, had obtained a decision to search the homes of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his son Bilal Erdoğan.
Seeing the scale of the danger, I immediately called Mr. Selami Yıldız and instructed him: ‘Selami, immediately change all the guards around the President's home. Replace them with special forces officers who love their country and nation. If traitors come to search the house using fabricated decisions, you will resist with weapons if necessary, but you will not let them take a single step through that door.’
Our chief Selami accepted this challenge without hesitation, replaced the entire protection detail with patriotic personnel and protected the safety of our leader.”
'15 July was a major social rupture that differed from Türkiye's previous coups'
Prof. Dr. Necdet Subaşı assessed the social dimension of 15 July and stressed the decisive role of collective memory in rebuilding common life.
“15 July was a major social rupture caused by FETÖ's exploitation of social vulnerabilities and expectations, and it differed from Türkiye's previous coups.
The fundamental sociological issue today is how we will rebuild common life by overcoming the distrust caused by this rupture. Recording testimonies, keeping collective memory alive and developing a shared awareness against forgetting are both sociological and public responsibilities,” he said.
'When collective memory weakens, events become open to normalization'
The forum continued with a speech by curator and writer Hasan Mert Kaya. Kaya highlighted the importance of preserving collective memory through concrete testimonies and documents so that 15 July can be accurately conveyed to future generations.
Kaya said: “Remembering 15 July means preserving the truth through concrete records and passing it on to future generations.
When collective memory weakens, events become vulnerable to manipulation, denial and normalization. For this reason, we conceived Hafıza 15 Temmuz not merely as a museum but as a memory space where lived experience, testimony and truth are preserved.
Documenting that 15 July was a real coup attempt, with its tanks, aircraft, ammunition and planning, is part of our historic responsibility to the future.”
'Those who took to the streets that night acted through conscience and intuition'
Dr. İpek Coşkun Armağan, General Coordinator of Enstitü Sosyal, also said that the night of 15 July 2016 was not an ordinary date.
Armağan said that tanks, aircraft and bullets were all made of iron, but that human will was far heavier than iron. “During those hours when FETÖ and dark forces collaborating with it advanced on the people with tanks, missiles and fighter jets, we gave the harshest response in the squares to a mindset that viewed our country as a colony to be exploited.
That night, our nation responded to missiles with slingstones, as if composing a reply to Necip Fazıl's verses, and defended its freedom without the slightest fear of the tanks driven toward them,” she said.
Armağan said she found it difficult as a sociologist to explain the force that brought these people into the streets and placed them before the tanks. She continued: “Reşat Nuri Güntekin has a very fine saying. He says, ‘The Anatolian people may not be scholars, but they are wise.’
They took to those streets with this knowledge and intuition. Those who went to the squares that night did not act because they had studied theses on Turkish political life; they acted through a collective conscience and intuition.
Our nation knew that the attack on its leader and state was an attack on its own home. The bombing of our Grand National Assembly, the heart of our freedom, clearly showed how grave the threat was that night. The stance of Bekir Bozdağ and our lawmakers, who did not leave Parliament at that moment and resisted until the first light of morning against the traitors seeking to disregard the national will, is one of the golden pages of our history,” she said.
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