The first episode of ORSA TV’s “Siyah Beyaz Gündem” program brought together four former members of the Turkish military to discuss what they described as falsehoods presented to the public during the purge and restructuring of the Turkish Armed Forces after Turkey’s July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
ORSA TV said the program would examine the purge and transformation process in the Turkish Armed Forces through the accounts of people who witnessed it closely and had direct knowledge of the institutions involved.
The opening episode introduced the participants and framed the broader discussion. Later episodes were planned to examine dismissal procedures inside the Turkish Armed Forces before July 15, the purge operations launched after the coup attempt and the creation of a unit described by the program as a “terrorist production center.”
The program identified that unit as the Judicial Monitoring, Administrative Procedure and Review Branch, known in Turkish by the initials ATİİ. The guests were expected to discuss how the branch was established, what role it played in the dismissal process and how legal categories were allegedly used to justify mass removals from the military.
The series also promised to examine what instruments were used in the ongoing purge, what legal basis was claimed for those measures and how obscured facts could be clarified through witness accounts and institutional knowledge.
In the program note, Halis Tunç said “Siyah Beyaz Gündem” would continue to host witnesses and specialists to discuss issues related to Turkey’s military purge and the broader political transformation that followed the coup attempt.
Viewers were invited to submit questions through ORSA TV’s Twitter account, with the first five minutes of the next episode reserved for responses.
The video below presents the full program.
