Turkey’s mass trials deepen wounds left by attempted coup

SILIVRI, Turkey — Turkish courts are just weeks from concluding some 300 mass trials intended to draw a line under the most traumatic event of Turkey’s recent history: the failed 2016 coup that killed 251 people, mostly civilians, and wounded more than 2,000.

So far, nearly 3,000 security personnel and civilians have been convicted, and the sweeping verdicts have been welcomed by the government and its supporters as justice served.

But the process has also widened political divisions in Turkey and deepened a sense of persecution among government opponents, who say the mass trials are emblematic of an increasingly arbitrary system of justice under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

More than two years after the coup attempt, Erdogan’s government continues to press its pursuit and prosecution of those suspected of being in league with the man it accuses of organizing the plot, Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The crackdown has progressively widened to include an entire class of political opponents, as the government has purged tens of thousands from the judiciary and academia, as well as the police and military.

The arrests go on virtually weekly. On Tuesday, authorities issued warrants for more than 1,100 people across 75 provinces over suspected links to the Gulen network, the semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported.

Gulen, who lives in the United States, also has been indicted in the most prominent cases aimed at the top ranks of the coup plotters, but U.S. officials say the evidence presented against him is not enough for his extradition.

The abundant evidence presented at the trials has put to rest any broad doubts that there was an organized plot to unseat Erdogan, who himself evaded capture that night. But human rights activists and government critics say the process — which includes trying 100 to 200 people at a time — has been so deeply flawed that it has muddied the case against the coup makers.

Critics say the mass trials represent collective punishment that has reached far beyond the leaders of the coup effort, as Erdogan’s crackdown swept up every man on active duty that night in bases and units around the country.