1. Ahmet Kenan Evren was a Turkish military officer and dictator who served as the seventh president of Turkey from 1980 to 1989.
18 Facts About Kenan Evren
1. 2.
Kenan Evren assumed the post by leading the 1980 military coup.
3.
Kenan Evren was found guilty of obstructing democracy by deposing the prime minister Suleyman Demirel and of abolishing the parliament, senate and the constitution.
4.
Kenan Evren's father, who was an imam, was of Albanian origins.
5.
Kenan Evren was originally from the town of Presevo and immigrated to Turkey to live with his uncle, who was in Istanbul.
6.
Kenan Evren was the commander of Operation Gladio's Turkish branch; the Counter-Guerrilla.
7.
Kenan Evren became Chief of General Staff in March 1978.
8.
Kenan Evren was selected by then Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit for not being a member of any political group inside the Turkish Military.
9.
Kenan Evren, after leading the 1980 military coup in Turkey, used a combination of brutal repression, ideological indoctrination, and legal restructuring to instill obedience in the population.
10.
Kenan Evren oversaw mass arrests of over 600,000 people, widespread torture, and dozens of executions, creating a climate of fear.
11.
In Summary, Kenan Evren suspended many forms of civil liberties and human rights on the grounds that it was necessary to establish stability.
12.
Kenan Evren professed great admiration for the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
13.
Kenan Evren despite being a staunch defender of Kemalism used a religious rhetoric in his speeches to make his remarks more relatable.
14.
Kenan Evren took strong measures to ensure that the division between the political left and right would not turn into violence again; the new constitution limited the rights and depoliticized the youth.
15.
Kenan Evren was the last Turkish president to have been born in the Ottoman Empire.
16.
On 2 August 2006, a reported plan for assassinating Kenan Evren was thwarted when two men were apprehended and arrested in Mugla.
17.
Kenan Evren's daughter presided over the reprisal operations against the militant Armenian organization ASALA.
18.
Kenan Evren died at a military hospital in Ankara on 9 May 2015, aged 97.