How Turkey’s Lawmakers Barely Escaped the Attempted Coup With Their Lives

When Turkish military officers set in motion an attempted coup d’état on the night of July 15, lawmakers in the capital, Ankara, rushed to the parliament building. As explosions rocked the capital and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was nowhere to be seen, it appeared the MPs might be making their last stand in defense of Turkey’s democracy. As he headed to the government headquarters, opposition lawmaker Mahmut Tanal brought a copy of the Turkish constitution.