Singer Demet Sağıroğlu repeated her claim that Turkey’s July 15, 2016 coup attempt was staged, using the Turkish political shorthand “theater” in a social media post that revived criticism of Ankara’s official account.
“To those who didn’t stop attacking me six years ago for saying ‘theater,’ let me say it again: The theater continues,” she wrote. “The only thing that has changed is that more people are watching the play.”
In Turkish political debate, calling July 15 “theater” means describing the coup attempt as staged, manipulated or at least not unfolding as the government has claimed.
Her comment came as public questions about the official account had returned to the agenda after organized crime figure Sedat Peker made allegations about weapons distributed around the coup attempt.
Peker accused Süleyman Soylu, who was interior minister when the allegations surfaced in 2021, of involvement in the distribution of unregistered weapons after July 15.
The claim added to earlier questions raised by opposition lawmakers about weapons allegedly handed out to civilians during or after the coup attempt.
Sağıroğlu’s post gave those questions a new public voice from outside formal politics.
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party has treated July 15 as the foundation of a new political order, with official commemorations, criminal trials and a broad post-coup purge built around Ankara’s account of the night.
Critics of that account argue that key parts of the night remain unexplained, including the conduct of political officials, the movement of security forces and the distribution of weapons to civilians.
Sağıroğlu did not present new evidence in her post.
Her statement mattered because she repeated a view that had drawn backlash years earlier and suggested that skepticism of the official narrative had spread.
“The theater continues,” she wrote. “The only thing that has changed is that more people are watching the play.”
