Istanbul: Suspects on trial over last year’s coup attempt in Turkey will wear a brown uniform during their hearings, Recep Tayyip Erdoan has announced, after a controversy over a suspect wearing a T-shirt labelled “hero” during a court appearance. The Turkish president announced the change at a speech in the city of Malatya, days after nearly 500 defendants appeared in court, including top generals and officers, in the largest mass trial of suspects accused of masterminding and carrying out the attempted putsch last July, which killed 250 people and wounded 1,400.
“There will be no more coming to courts wearing whatever they want,” Erdoan said, according to the daily newspaper Hurriyet.
“They will be introduced to the world like that.”
A suspect accused of belonging to the Fethullah Gulen movement, which is widely believed in Turkey to have masterminded the coup attempt and is led by an exiled preacher in the United States, wore the “hero” T-shirt to his hearing.
Several people were detained afterwards for wearing the same shirt. At a rally on the anniversary of the coup last month, Erdogan had called for the suspects to be dressed in orange jumpsuits like those worn by people incarcerated in the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.
Tens of thousands of people have been dismissed from their jobs or detained over alleged links to the Gulen movement in the months since the failed coup, and trials are ongoing for many of the top military officers and civilians who are accused by prosecutors of leading the putsch.
The broad crackdown has gone beyond the alleged perpetrators, however, and has ensnared journalists, academics, judges and civil servants.
Turkey has yet to come to terms with the coup attempt. The country has grown more polarised in recent months as fears grow over Erdogan’s consolidation of power.
In April, a referendum that vastly expanded his powers was narrowly approved ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections expected in 2019.
