RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Now that the military coup in Turkey has failed, a roundup is underway. The government has arrested some 6,000 people, including generals, judges and prosecutors. Many Turks are worried that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees this as an opportunity to grab more power. Here's NPR's Leila Fadel.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: At a funeral on the Asian side of Istanbul, three coffins covered in Turkish flags are carried above the crowd at the entrance of a mosque. People weep and say God is great.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: A woman sobs. Her cousin is among the dead. They were unarmed civilians, she says. This is a massacre, not a coup. The three being mourned were from the same upper-class Istanbul neighborhood. They all died of gunshot wounds. Relatives compared the fighting Friday night and into Saturday morning to a war - soldiers shooting at civilians and police then firing on the soldiers. By the time the military takeover failed, more than 290 people were dead across Turkey.
MUHSIN EFENDILIR: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: Muhsin Efendilir tells me his nephew is one of the dead at this funeral. Murat Martel was 39 and had three children. He left his home when he heard a friend had been shot. The friend is also being buried on this day. Efendilir says when his nephew passed the state-owned telecom company where soldiers were trying to take control, his nephew was shot in the back.
EFENDILIR: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: He says his nephew died for nothing. Our taxes paid for the soldiers' guns, he says. Shame on them.
EFENDILIR: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: Efendilir was always against the death penalty abolished in Turkey in 2004. But now he wants it back. What can I say? - he says. It hurt so badly. With the death penalty, these people will come to their senses. It's a sentiment among many that are grieving. And President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has implied that he'll consider reinstating it. But even at this funeral, there are those who are worried that Erdogan, the president, will use this moment to increase his power.
JALE YANILMAZ: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: The crowd's a mix of the religious and the secular. One woman, Jale Yanilmaz, from a leftist political party, worries that Erdogan, a political Islamist, could use this moment to try to change the nature of Turkey from the constitutionally secular state it is today to something else.
YANILMAZ: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: She says she's in pain over the senseless violence, angry about the attempted military overthrow by a small part of the army, but also angry that the president called on civilians to confront the army.
YANILMAZ: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: She says involving civilians in something the security forces should handle creates more chaos.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in foreign language).
FADEL: Later that night, many Turks heed the call of their president and return to the streets. He's asked citizens to go out every night for another week to celebrate and protect democracy. They chant religious slogans, play Ottoman Janissary songs and wear Turkish flags.
Erdogan was democratically elected, but he's been cracking down on journalists and political opponents. There are many Turks who feel he's grown too powerful. And now there's a rampant conspiracy theory that the military takeover was staged so that Erdogan could purge Turkish institutions. One man I spoke to believes that conspiracy theory.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: They are celebrating democracy? They know the democracy? They know anything about democracy?
FADEL: He won't give his name because he says there's no freedom of expression in Turkey.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I don't want to arrest.
FADEL: I don't want to be arrested, he says, showing me pictures from his Facebook page of people beating and whipping soldiers, of crying soldiers. This is shameful. They were only following orders, he says.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Everybody is divided in Turkey.
FADEL: He's afraid of what may come next. Leila Fadel, NPR News, Istanbul.
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