On the night of 15 July 2016, military tanks rumbled across the Istanbul Strait bridges as fighter jets launched deadly strikes against Turkish civilians. The putschist soldiers, later identified as members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO), attempted a violent coup d’etat in Türkiye.

It left 253 civilians dead and over 2000 injured. But the actual aim of the coup was to topple the elected government, dismantle the constitutional order, and crush the will of the people.

In their betrayal, coup plotters targeted Parliament, attacked democracy, and turned the military, sworn to protect the nation, against its citizens.

As tanks rolled into the streets of Istanbul and Ankara, two million citizens ultimately took to the streets to resist the coup, one man acted before the crowds arrived.

Without hesitation, Metin Dogan threw himself under the tracks of a tank weighing tens of tonnes, not in panic, but with steely determination. 

Nine years later, Dogan’s act remains one of the most powerful instances of civil resistance ever captured on film.

As the attempted coup d'etat unfolded, Dogan watched the news in disbelief as he saw images of tanks taking over the streets and listened to the president’s request for public resistance, something stirred in him.

“I thought that if people saw someone crushed under a tank’s tracks live on television, they would rush out into the streets without hesitation,” he tells TRT World. “So, I made my decision. And without thinking about anything else, I ran out of the house.” 

In the initial hours, there was no crowd, no chants, no mass movement.

“There were no demonstrators. Usually, you see a crowd and get swept up in it. But this time, there was no one. Actually, I had come out to get others to join me.” 

At Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, he saw a tank moving slowly through the area. In a moment of clarity, he dove beneath its right track.

Power of a patriot

As he lay down, he recited the Kalimah Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith, and waited.

“It was the first time I’d seen a tank in real life. I’d done my military service, but I never realised just how massive those treads were. I thought, ‘I’m going to die.’ So, I placed my head right beneath the track, hoping it would crush and kill me instantly.”

The tank stopped. The screech of brakes rang out, followed by shouts from bystanders.

As Dogan stood, he saw a soldier atop the tank, manning an anti-aircraft gun.

“He had it aimed at me, shouting, ‘I’m going to fire!’ I was trained as an anti-aircraft gunner in the military, I know what those guns can do at close range.”

Dogan didn’t flinch, even when a second soldier received orders to move the tank forward, and even when the commander pointed a pistol at him.

“I took off my shirt and pretended I was going to throw it, just to provoke him. If he shot me in such a brutal way, I thought, people would be more shocked and take to the streets even faster.”

By stopping the lead tank, I had effectively taken them all hostage. And when that first tank stopped, the whole convoy behind it stopped too, he says.

At one point, the tank lunged forward, its front rising half a metre off the ground. Dogan dove beneath the other track.

“This time, I was sure I was dead,” Dogan recalls. “The tread scraped my ears and shoulders. Then I felt it rise, and the whole tank rocked like a cradle. They had braked hard again. The whole ground trembled.”

Still, he survived. And when he stood again, the tide had begun to turn.

“At first it was just me. Then 10, 20, 40 people surrounded the tank. My action lasted maybe 10 minutes. Everyone had been yelling at me, saying ‘don’t do it!’”

When millions heeded Erdogan’s call

Half past midnight on 16 July, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a televised call to the nation:

“I call on our nation to gather in the city squares and at the airports. Let this minority group come with their tanks and their artillery, let them face the people. I have never known any force greater than the power of the people.”

Some, particularly outside Türkiye, have dismissed the events of that night as staged. To Dogan, that accusation reveals a deeper misunderstanding.

“It wasn’t even an order. It was a request,” he adds.

A request that brought two million people running into the streets, ready to die. Those who call it a show simply don’t have the heart to understand such love. They don’t have the mind to grasp such faith, Metin says.

Dogan, having done what he came to do, stepped away from the tank and lit a cigarette.

Later, he learned that the soldier who had stopped the tank from crushing him was shot in the foot by his commander as punishment.

“For a week, I couldn’t sleep,” he says with a laugh. “I kept thinking: the security footage will come out, and my mother will see I smoked. I could explain why I lay under a tank. But I couldn’t explain why I started smoking again.”

He reiterates his faith in the divine. “That’s when I knew,” he said. “God didn’t let me die. He saved me so I must go out. I was meant to go out. I believe in destiny.”

Today, Metin Dogan walks the streets of Istanbul as both an ordinary citizen and a living symbol of the night democracy and freedom were defended, not with weapons, but with sheer willpower and love for his country.

“While I love life so dearly,” he says, “I first and foremost thank God for blessing me with a homeland for which I would give my life without a second thought.”