The Epic of the 15 July Resistance and Resurgence

15 July is the name of the coup and invasion attempt by international tutelage forces aiming to disrupt our unity and solidarity to bring Turkey into line. They tried to trap our nation in chaos and open our homeland to occupation to achieve this goal. Like previous coups, they activated their internal pawns to reach their objective. The terrorist organization FETÖ, rooted overseas, infiltrated state institutions and attempted to seize all strategic state institutions on the night of 15 July. 

In response to the deep plans of the 15 July betrayal, our nation’s resistance and resurgence will were greater and braver than the betrayal of the insidious terrorist organization. Every individual of our nation took to the streets at the risk of their lives, resisting the merciless attacks of the treacherous network with their bare hands against weapons, tanks, and planes. In the treacherous attempt that lasted less than 24 hours, 250 of our brothers were martyred, and 2,193 of our brothers were veterans. 

As the Memur-Sen family, we took to the squares from the first minutes of the coup attempt with the call of our President Ali Yalçın. We joined the resistance against the FETÖ traitors, in all 81 provinces. We lost our comrades and brothers Prof. Dr. İlhan Varank, Yusuf Elitaş, Ali Alıtkan, Cuma Dağ, and Kutlu Nebi as martyrs. However, 15 July became a turning point and the first step of a rebirth, while for the global evil network and their pawns, it became the beginning of an eternal nightmare. 

Although the global evil forces lost the battle, they did not give up their ambitions. They did not refrain from trying various methods and means to make Turkey do what they wanted. We witnessed the efforts of those who tried to legitimize the coup attempt, trying to exonerate FETÖ's betrayal with controlled coup narratives, and later, the perception operations that blamed the pious community based on FETÖ. In addition, they tried to achieve results with various uprisings in every field, from economic attacks to political conspiracies, from terrorist attacks to perception operations. Today, we see a similar attempt staged to create social chaos through refugees, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. However, such attempts aimed at our nation’s unity and solidarity will not succeed as they have not succeeded so far. 

Eight years have passed since the 15 July Coup Attempt. During this process, we have understood very clearly that the epic of resistance and resurgence displayed by our nation’s wisdom, the blessed memory of our martyrs, and our independence and future are our greatest guarantees. As the Memur-Sen family, we commemorate our martyrs with mercy and gratitude and wish health and well-being to our veterans.