Turkey's 2016 coup attempt, 10 years on: the failed revolt that handed Erdogan total control and silenced Europe

The night the bridge closed

Tanks sealed the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul on the evening of 15 July 2016, a Friday. Fighter jets screamed over Ankara and bombarded the national assembly. Soldiers from a faction within the military had launched the country's fifth modern coup attempt. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, away from the capital, appeared via a video call on CNN Turk.

I invite all the population to take to the streets.

Civilian resistance, mobilised by that call, flooded squares and confronted soldiers alongside loyalist security forces. Much of the army refused to join the plotters. By the following morning the revolt had collapsed, leaving between 252 and roughly 300 dead, depending on the source, most of them civilians in Istanbul. The government immediately blamed the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally turned rival whose followers were accused of building a "parallel state" inside the judiciary, police and military.

The purge that followed

Six days after the coup, parliament approved a state of emergency. Initially set for three months, it was extended seven times and lasted until 19 July 2018. During those two years, Erdogan issued 32 emergency decrees. More than 125,000 public servants and members of the armed forces were dismissed. Between 2016 and 2025, around 390,000 people were arrested for alleged links to the Gulen movement, according to official figures. The cleric, who denied involvement, died in US exile in 2024. Turkey designated his network a terrorist organisation. The purge did not stop with Gulenists: judges, academics, journalists and Kurdish politicians were swept up. Reporters Without Borders now ranks Turkey 163rd out of 180 countries for press freedom.

The making of an executive presidency

Erdogan called the failed coup a "gift from God" and used the aftermath to convert Turkey's parliamentary system into a presidential one. The 2017 constitutional referendum, held under emergency rule, concentrated executive power in his hands. July 15 became a national holiday; the Bosphorus Bridge was renamed the "Bridge of the Martyrs of July 15". Streets, squares and schools across the country were given the same name. A memorial culture was built around the civilian dead, but the date also marks the deep political rupture that followed. Dissent was increasingly equated with treason.

The opposition in chains

The crackdown reached the top of the political opposition. Ekrem Imamoglu, the former mayor of Istanbul and Erdogan's strongest challenger, has been in prison since March 2025. In May 2026, a court removed the entire leadership of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), including its head Ozgur Ozel. The moves drew only muted international reaction. When Erdogan hosted a NATO summit in Ankara, more than 200 regime critics were arrested in the run-up. Alliance members largely stayed silent, citing the need for unity. The European Parliament's Turkey rapporteur, Nacho Sanchez Amor, travelled to Istanbul as a trial observer for hearings against Imamoglu. He was described by one outlet as a lone voice of criticism.

Europe's strategic silence

Brussels once sharply condemned every backslide by the EU candidate country, yet current developments are met with growing quiet. Turkey's geopolitical weight has become indispensable to Europe, say analysts. It is a NATO member with the alliance's second-largest army, a mediator in the Middle East and the Ukraine war, and a partner on energy, defence and migration. The fear of the "Trump risk factor" has further discouraged escalation with Ankara. The result, according to one German report, is that Europe appeared to dance to Erdogan's tune at the latest NATO summit.

The EU and its members, who once sharply rebuked every setback in the rule of law by candidate country Turkey, are increasingly greeting current developments with silence.

Turkey's economic crisis and high inflation persist, while Erdogan's popularity has slipped. The president, in power with his AKP party for more than 20 years, relies on repression and propaganda to hold on. Ten years after the coup, the country is more authoritarian and more central to Western security calculations, a paradox that keeps its allies muted.