Turkey creates ‘Traitors’ Cemetery’ for dead coup plotters

Turkey: Turkey has moved to create a cemetery called the “Traitors’ Cemetery,” to bury the bodies of failed coup plotters who died during the July 15 failed coup attempt in Turkey. About 290 people were killed during the failed coup with about 24 coup plotters believed to have been killed that night.


In a remark by Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas, authorities would “reserve a spot and call it a traitors’ cemetery where passers-by will curse them,” “May every passer-by curse them and let them not rest in their tombs.”

The creation of the cemetery comes amid an ongoing massive crackdown after the failed coup with almost 16,000 people been detained, including around 10,000 military personnel;

Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs had issued an order rejecting funeral prayers and services for the coup plotters who died while trying to overthrow the government. Such prayers, it said, were planned for the faithful as an act of exoneration;

“but these people, with the action they undertook, have disregarded not just individuals but also the law of an entire nation and therefore do not deserve exoneration from the faithful.”

According to workers at the site, only one body arrived in an ambulance on Monday adding that no prayers were made and no ceremony was held.

“Those who disrespect this nation will not be allowed to rest even in their tombs,” Topbas said in a speech on Monday night.

The cemetery located deep within the animal shelter construction site can not be accessed by the public as some residents at the existing makeshift dog shelter next door were provoked to learn that the such cemetery had already been constructed in their area.

57-year-old Serhan Baturay, a volunteer who also runs an animal welfare groups said; 

“They should have buried them somewhere far from our animals. I wish we didn’t know those traitors were here. We don’t want them,”

“They shouldn’t be placed near our dogs, they shouldn’t be anywhere in Turkey,” she said. “They should be cremated and their ashes tossed into the ocean. There shouldn’t be a trace of them anywhere in the country. As a Turkish citizen I don’t want such a thing.”