On July 15, 2016, at least 241 citizens and government law enforcement died from an attempted coup d’ état constructed by elements of the Turkish military which was a sudden political act aiming to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. As a result, the government declared a state of emergency that consisted of jailing thousands of soldiers and began an abrupt removal of police, teachers, police officials, judges and prosecutors. Moreover, the Syrian war continues to impact Turkey since it hosts an estimated 2.7 million Syrian refugees which has led individuals allegedly linked to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) to have regular bomb attacks in Turkey. In the period of January to May 2016, up to 400,000 residents were displaced due to intense security operations in towns where the city militias linked to the PKK had become firmly established. Importantly, the government of Turkey has made the efforts to silence media criticism and scrutiny of government policy by threatening as well as prosecuting journalists, taking over media companies such as the daily Zaman newspaper and even removing critical television stations from the main state-owned satellite distribution platform. Control over freedom of speech in Turkey has become so significant that it became the country with the highest number of requests on Twitter to censor individual accounts (Human Rights Watch 2016).