The release of jailed journalists will help the anti-Gülenist struggle

On the first anniversary of the July 15 coup attempt; I was invited by international media outlets to share my views. The questions focused on the anti-democratic dimension of the purges that has taken place after the failed coup. I was also asked about the journalists behind the bars.

In fact, a large majority of the coverage by the international media focused on the democratic backslide that followed in the days after the coup.

Not much was said about how heroically Turkish citizens took to the streets and stood against tanks. A prominent newspaper like the Financial Times used the title "Turkey marks anniversary of failed coup against Erdoğan." Yet, while the visible target was President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government, the coup targeted democracy and Turkish democrats as well.

Indeed not much was said about how Turks stood against the coup plotters to defend democracy. That's probably because the international press is of the opinion that not much is left of the democracy which took Turks to the street to defend at the cost of their lives.

Even less was said about the wickedness of the Gülenists; who tried to topple the government to replace it with an Islamo-fascist regime. 

While the foreign journalists believe that Turkey is increasingly sliding into an authoritarian regime under the rule of President Erdoğan, they fail to realize that had the coup been successful the Gülenists would have set to slowly kill the secular Turkish republic in a very sophisticated way. They would erode the secular democratic elements of the regime without irritating the Western world and by winning their silence through improving the rights of the non-Muslim minorities in Turkey and waging a strict war against the Islamic State...