In Memoriam | Kenan Evren (1917-2015)

Former Turkish President and coup leader Kenan Evren[1] dies. A constitutional clause granting the general immunity from prosecution was overturned after a referendum in 2010, as part of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempts to rein in the power of the army. In 2014 a Turkish court convicted him of crimes against the state for setting the stage for army intervention and conducting the coup. The 12 September 1980 Turkish coup d'état, headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic after the 1960 coup and the 1971 "Coup by Memorandum".

(pictured) Kenan Evren, a general at the time, appeared on a version of the September 29, 1980 cover of Time.

Mavi Boncuk |

"On 12 September 1980 General Evren launched a coup that overthrew the government. He went on to serve as president until 1989.
He was put on trial in his nineties and was handed a life sentence for the coup in 2014.

Some 600,000 people were detained and 50 executed by hanging in the coup. All political parties were banned, with left-wing activists heavily targeted.
The former president died at a hospital in Ankara.
He had been in ill health since 2012 and was unable to appear in court when convicted. "Guney Yildiz, BBC News

Kenan Evren has never expressed regret for his role in the most brutal military coup in modern Turkish history.  1980 coup was the last and bloodiest of Turkey's coups and came to symbolize the military's long-standing dominance over Turkish politics.

Gen Evren believed that his actions saved the country from descending into anarchy after deadly fighting between political extremists.
"Should we feed them in prison for years instead of hanging them?" he said in a speech in 1984, defending the decision to execute political activists. 


[1] Kenan Evren (Turkish pronunciation: [keˈnan evˈɾen]; 17 July 1917 – 9 May 2015) was a Turkish military officer who was the seventh President of Turkey from 1980 to 1989. He assumed the post by leading the 1980 military coup. On 18 June 2014 a Turkish court sentenced him to life imprisonment for leading the military coup in 1980, obstructing democracy by deposing the prime minister, Suleyman Demirel, abolishing the parliament and the senate and abolishing the constitution. His military rank was also demoted down to private, from Army General. 

 The years leading to the coup were characterized as a fierce struggle between the rightists and leftists. Hoping to see a communist revolution, the left wingers rioted in the streets; on the other hand, the nationalist rightists fought back the left wingers and provoked religious arousal. Universities had taken sides and each became headquarters for either the leftists or rightists. With the coup came the National Security Council as the ruling body. The council of 1980 was composed of the commanders Kenan Evren, the Chief of Staff and President of the State. The parliament was dissolved. The Central Intelligence Agency's Ankara bureau chief at the time, Paul B. Henze, received a call from the White House Situation Room saying "Paul, your guys have done it", while President Jimmy Carter was watching Fiddler on the Roof at the Kennedy Center.