The Turkish government has, finally, decided to take the individuals its suspects of preparing to stage a coup (by violence) to court. Today marks the first day of the trial: 68 defendants are accused of illegally trying to topple the regime of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul.

They are, prosecutors say, part of an extremist secularist organization, whose goal it was to create massive chaos and instability in Turkey, which would then force the Turkish military to stage a coup and to get rid of the moderate Islamist party the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti in Turkish).

To call the trial controversial would be an understatement. Most Turks believe that something was most certainly going on, but they are skeptical about the government’s far-reaching claims. This group of individuals includes normal, moderate, secularists. Most of them strongly oppose those who want to rid the country of the Islamist AK Parti by violence. They believe the AKP can and should be stopped by legal and democratic means.

However, there are also those who support the government unquestionably, these people are generally Islamists themselves, who consider secularists of all stripes the main enemy, and those who believe that it’s all a farce. The latter support the ones on trial now.

When the defendants were brought to court, a group of such supporters were waving signs and chanting.” The real traitors are in Parliament,” the protesters chanted, “the real patriots in prison.”

Although it seems likely that something was indeed going on in Turkey, it is also likely that the AK Parti has blown it out of proportion out of revenge for the closure case against it, which it eventually survived by only one vote, and used it as an excuse to cramp down on each and all opposition. Secularists who were vocal in their opposition to the Islamists were all arrested, put in prison, refused to the right to defend themselves, and could only wait for weeks or months until they would finally find out what they were accused of exactly or be released. 

Erdogan and Gul have not made themselves popular in Europe with this case; most European leaders realize that something may have indeed been going on, but also know that the AK Parti has used the case as an excuse to oppress and silence critics.

In the coming days and weeks, we will find out how many of the claims made by the AKP were correct, and how many false. Stay tuned.