During huge rally, Turkish president hints at return of death penalty
In front of at least 1 million people at Sunday's Democracy and Martyrs' Rally in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said if parliament and the public agreed, he would approve the return of the death penalty.
"It is the Turkish parliament that will decide on the death penalty," Erdogan said, adding, "They say there is no death penalty in the EU … well, the U.S. has it, Japan has it, China has it, most of the world has it. So they are allowed to have it. We used to have it until 1984. Sovereignty belongs to the people, so if the people make this decision I am sure the political parties will comply."
The Turkish government is pinning last month's failed military coup on U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, and thousands of his alleged supporters have been detained or fired from government jobs (Gulen has denied any involvement). BBC News reports Erdogan "also said the state would be cleansed of all supporters," and speaking before Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Gulen will "come to Turkey and pay for what he did."
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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