Over a million Turks at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rally to denounce coup

More than a million Turks gathered in Istanbul yesterday for a rally called by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to denounce a failed coup — a show of strength staged in the face of Western criticism of widespread purges and detentions.

The ‘Democracy and Martyrs’ Rally’ at Yenikapi parade ground, built into the sea on the southern edge of Istanbul’s peninsula, marks the climax of three weeks of nightly demonstrations by Erdogan’s supporters, many of them wrapped in the Turkish flag, in squares around the country.

Banners read “You are a gift from God, Erdogan” or “Order us to die and we will do it”.